Sci-Fi at its best deals with the big issues like what it means to be human ( Bladerunner) or the nature of reality ( The Matrix). Most often the quality of the technology on display is relatively incidental.
Indeed, often for the more speculative aspects of Sci-fi it is interesting to see how close or far out the film-makers have been about the technology of the future.
Spot on. Sci-fi is usually about fantastical ideas or philosophical questions or society's fears. As long as the technology works within the diagesis (i.e. world) of the film itself, it doesn't matter if it's applicable to our own reality either now or in the future.
That said, I remember Spielberg consulted with loads of experts when he made Minority Report. He wanted it to feature ideas and innovations that were legitimately on the cards and/or viable. I remember reading one example of a toilet that analyses your health based on, erm, what you put in it. Sadly this was not in the film.
shrinking films. shinking man, fantastic voyage, etc ....... as the humans get smaller, how do they manage to breathe ? since respiration depends on air molecules staying the same "relative size to lungs" .......
That's only the least of the plot holes in any 'miniaturisation' movie. Starting with "where does all the mass go?" Or does a miniature human weigh the same as a full size human?
Only, it's BS. Humans still used money in Star Trek, and Starfleet people still got paid. It's all very well saying humans in Trek have advanced to the point where the pursuit of wealth for its own sake is an unnecessary and a futile exercise. That sugests humanity has moved beyond greed and materilasim; but it's just not the case. Many humans in Star Trek are still greedy and materliastic. Star Trek, and TNG in particluar, was often seen from the perspective of those who have everything at their fingertips; a very privileged confortable existence in their five star flagship, it was only when Star Trek expanded from that cosy existence that we realised how nonsensical Roddenberry's ideals were, even in the universe he created.
You haven't watched a lot of Star Trek have you? First Contact wasnt the first time it had been mentioned.
Actually in most of the Star Trek i've seen the concept of a moneyless society is upheld. They don't go into too much detail about how things work but you can infer a lot of it. Jake Sissko actually says to Nog in DS9 "I'm human, I don't have any money". It's based in a future where technology has increased to such a level that it is fairly simple for the government to provide people with all of their basic needs. Individuals are then free to carry out careers purely for personal reasons of fulfillment, not in order to survive.
Think of it like this - say you had a town of 1,000 people where the council makes 10 billion a year just by selling rights to it's (unlimited) oil reserves. What type of society should exist in the town - one were a few people receive the money and the rest have to continue working their daily lives, or one where everyone is given enough money so that they don't have to work if they don't want to? Our current mentality is that the first one is right, Star Trek suggests that one day we may see the second choice as making more sense.
Spot on. Sci-fi is usually about fantastical ideas or philosophical questions or society's fears. As long as the technology works within the diagesis (i.e. world) of the film itself, it doesn't matter if it's applicable to our own reality either now or in the future.
Right. Although SF is usually described as a 'box' genre, but diagesis sounds better. Anyhow, a box consists an universe that operates on a basis of its own rules, which becomes a mythology. SF as a film genre can have a few films built around an influential film's mythology or have one developing a new mythology. All within that box a.k.a. genre conventions, and technology reflects that. In other words, SF is rooted in alternative reality, regardless of how closely it resembles our real world, which you and others have already noted.
Moving to another note, the core aspect of SF is its tendency to conduct a fictional world to showcase a specific social commentary, which makes it somewhat interesting and sometimes predictable, a lot more than other genres.
For example, Metropolis (1927), Robocop (1987) and Hunger Games (2012) share same themes, politics and plot points. All three highlight and address socio-economic inequalities, capitalism and corporate greed, and the politics of a class-based system. And all three feature a protagonist that's created as a solution to uphold that system, but the protagonist as a solution ultimately turns against its creators through acts of rebellion and violence in the name of free will.
Actually in most of the Star Trek i've seen the concept of a moneyless society is upheld. They don't go into too much detail about how things work but you can infer a lot of it. Jake Sissko actually says to Nog in DS9 "I'm human, I don't have any money".
They dont go into that much detail because it exposes the how unworkable the idea is. The convesration you mention ilutrates this perfectly. Jake is left looking like a naive fool. Then again, DS9 always had a slightly more realistic take on things and never shied away from making fun at some of the ST universe's inconsistencies and weaknesses.
It's based in a future where technology has increased to such a level that it is fairly simple for the government to provide people with all of their basic needs. Individuals are then free to carry out careers purely for personal reasons of fulfillment, not in order to survive.
Which is fine if that was a universal concept, but it isnt. Other planets use money. Many humans live and work on other planets, if they want to survive and live a confortable lifestyle they need money.
Think of it like this - say you had a town of 1,000 people where the council makes 10 billion a year just by selling rights to it's (unlimited) oil reserves. What type of society should exist in the town - one were a few people receive the money and the rest have to continue working their daily lives, or one where everyone is given enough money so that they don't have to work if they don't want to? Our current mentality is that the first one is right, Star Trek suggests that one day we may see the second choice as making more sense.
Thats not even close to Roddenberry's concept of a future money-less humanity. His idea was far more naive than that: No greed, no money.
Right. Although SF is usually described as a 'box' genre, but diagesis sounds better. Anyhow, a box consists an universe that operates on a basis of its own rules, which becomes a mythology. SF as a film genre can have a few films built around an influential film's mythology or have one developing a new mythology. All within that box a.k.a. genre conventions, and technology reflects that. In other words, SF is rooted in alternative reality, regardless of how closely it resembles our real world, which you and others have already noted.
Moving to another note, the core aspect of SF is its tendency to conduct a fictional world to showcase a specific social commentary, which makes it somewhat interesting and sometimes predictable, a lot more than other genres.
For example, Metropolis (1927), Robocop (1987) and Hunger Games (2012) share same themes, politics and plot points. All three highlight and address socio-economic inequalities, capitalism and corporate greed, and the politics of a class-based system. And all three feature a protagonist that's created as a solution to uphold that system, but the protagonist as a solution ultimately turns against its creators through acts of rebellion and violence in the name of free will.
Absolutely agree. The social commentary underpinning the genre is why it's been so interesting to me, eg fear of communism or fear of the atomic bomb in earlier sci-Fi. I love horror for the same reasons...because you can track society's concerns by whatever the genre is doing at a particular point in time (e.g 80s vampire movies and AIDS).
It's interesting that as scientists grapple more with the most fundamental questions of our existence like how the universe was created, what is time, what is consciousness, etc we're getting more metaphysical cerebral sci-fi like Inception, Source Code, that recent one with Johnny Depp, and a whole glut of other films that deal with time, consciousness or alternate realities.
And you get something like The Matrix, which managed to cover the gamut from Marxist ideas to religion to constructed reality to race and power...I'm obviously only talking about the first film and not the shitty sequels.
That's only the least of the plot holes in any 'miniaturisation' movie. Starting with "where does all the mass go?" Or does a miniature human weigh the same as a full size human?
More importantly, where did the wreckage of the Proteus go. In the movie they left it inside poor Benes. In Isaac Asimov's novelisation, perhaps because he was a real scientist, he got the crew to remove it by having the white cell follow them out.
It's interesting that as scientists grapple more with the most fundamental questions of our existence like how the universe was created, what is time, what is consciousness, etc we're getting more metaphysical cerebral sci-fi like Inception, Source Code, that recent one with Johnny Depp, and a whole glut of other films that deal with time, consciousness or alternate realities.
And you get something like The Matrix, which managed to cover the gamut from Marxist ideas to religion to constructed reality to race and power...I'm obviously only talking about the first film and not the shitty sequels.
Humans have been asking those questions for centuries, and metaphysical cerebral story telling been around for as long as we have been asking those questions. None of those are new ideas, science fiction has covered them before many times over, long before Inception, Source Code or The Matrix came along.
More importantly, where did the wreckage of the Proteus go. In the movie they left it inside poor Benes. In Isaac Asimov's novelisation, perhaps because he was a real scientist, he got the crew to remove it by having the white cell follow them out.
Forgot about that one! Plus the large quantity of miniaturised water injected into Benes...
Rather than pointing out odd or silly things in older sci fi movies, personally I find the realisations and predictions of a future society more fascinating as time goes on.
As others have said, films can only envisage a future based on the current technology available, and by logical extension envisage or imagine how that technology might develop.
And its that vision of the future that I often find fascinating - it's not about how they may have got it wrong or were possibly way off the mark.
The Space race was a very good example - back in the 50's, 60's and early 70's it was assumed that the momentum would continue and we would expand to living on the moon, travelling to Mars etc, so that by this current era space travel would be normal, like getting on a plane.
But yet other priorities took over, and that never happened. There is no way that could have been predicted.
So for me, the historical context and the era in which the movie was made is often a fascinating part of watching older sci fi movies, and does not detract from the viewing enjoyment at all.
It's been a long time since I watched the film, but my (potentially flawed) memory is that there were lots of windows displaying very obviously Unix commands, so your comparison with Android is inaccurate.
On the other hand, it is still funny, because "knowing Unix" doesn't automatically enable one to instantly solve any problem with any arbitrary software running on that platform. Wasn't there some Silicon Graphics workstation product placement going on?
Surely that confirms that my 'Android' analogy was accurate.
The scene is here if you want to refresh your memory
Humans have been asking those questions for centuries, and metaphysical cerebral story telling been around for as long as we have been asking those questions. None of those are new ideas, science fiction has covered them before many times over, long before Inception, Source Code or The Matrix came along.
I did say we're getting "more" of these films. And I didn't say that humans have only just started asking those questions...obviously we know that from the days of the earliest religions or philosophers those questions have been asked.
But any genre has trends that reflect what's going on in the world at that time, where more films are made of a particular ilk, like the more socio-political sci-fi trends we've seen in the past. And our world is obviously much more scientifically sophisticated than it has been to date. So I maintain that the advances of science (e.g. quantum physics) and social sciences (e.g. dream studies in psychology) are absolutely reflected in the sci-fi trends of the 21st century.
I did say we're getting "more" of these films. And I didn't say that humans have only just started asking those questions...obviously we know that from the days of the earliest religions or philosophers those questions have been asked.
But we aren't getting more really. There's been steady stream of these type of movies for decades.
But any genre has trends that reflect what's going on in the world at that time, where more films are made of a particular ilk, like the more socio-political sci-fi trends we've seen in the past. And our world is obviously much more scientifically sophisticated than it has been to date. So I maintain that the advances of science (e.g. quantum physics) and social sciences (e.g. dream studies in psychology) are absolutely reflected in the sci-fi trends of the 21st century.
It's nothing we haven't seen previously though. Both those topics for example have been explored by sci fi decades ago. We do live in a more scientifically sophisticated world. A lot of those scientific advances are allowing us to potentially get closer to making theory a reality. But that isn't new, those advances haven't happened overnight, it is an ongoing process. It's that ongoing process, that vision, that has fuelled sci-fi. The science is now catching up with the fiction. That's why those concepts you mentioned have all been explored before. So where do we go from here? All the so called high concept science fiction we're getting now is merely recycled old material...so, where is the visionary style of sci-fi we had decades ago? I don't want sci-fi that reflects what we're only finding now (that was done decades ago). I want sci-fi that explores the usual stuff such as identity, reality, society, etc, with imaginative projections of concepts that are based on current findings and/or new theories.
But we aren't getting more really. There's been steady stream of these type of movies for decades.
It's nothing we haven't seen previously though. Both those topics for example have been explored by sci fi decades ago. We do live in a more scientifically sophisticated world. A lot of those scientific advances are allowing us to potentially get closer to making theory a reality. But that isn't new, those advances haven't happened overnight, it is an ongoing process. It's that ongoing process, that vision, that has fuelled sci-fi. The science is now catching up with the fiction. That's why those concepts you mentioned have all been explored before. So where do we go from here? All the so called high concept science fiction we're getting now is merely recycled old material...so, where is the visionary style of sci-fi we had decades ago? I don't want sci-fi that reflects what we're only finding now (that was done decades ago). I want sci-fi that explores the usual stuff such as identity, reality, society, etc, with imaginative projections of concepts that are based on current findings and/or new theories.
Well there are actually quite reactionary forces at work in the world today which seem to want to pull us back to medieval times.
As for new theories or ideas, I thought 'Her' was somewhat original as a Sci-fi romance reflecting the modern obsession with gadgetry and social isolation. I suppose it will appear dated in a few years with advances in computer interfaces.
Has 'visionary' Sci-fi suffered from this surfeit of modern mythological 'superhero' movies?
I seem to remember in several films and tv shows in the future we'll all be using credits.
Pretty much that way now, most transactions are done electronically all it is numbers on the screen, money, credits what's the difference...physical cash will be a thing of the past in the not to distant future.
All the so called high concept science fiction we're getting now is merely recycled old material...so, where is the visionary style of sci-fi we had decades ago? I don't want sci-fi that reflects what we're only finding now (that was done decades ago). I want sci-fi that explores the usual stuff such as identity, reality, society, etc, with imaginative projections of concepts that are based on current findings and/or new theories.
I'm not absolutely sure what that last bit means. You want the usual themes but 'with imaginative projections' - whatever way a theme is projected it's still going to be the same theme or issue.
As for the second bit about current findings and or/ new theories, Sci-fi is often about flights of fancy irrespective of 'current findings', so it doesn't always have to be grounded in the newest findings in particle physics or medical science.
I'm more familiar with new thinking in social theory and social sciences. Much of the thinking there is about the dismal performance of economic theory around and after the financial crash in 2008. Much current social science is about the failure and possible reform of capitalism, the increasing inequality between the super-rich and the emerging underclasses, the rise of the super-rich technocracy.
In science is the issue not about the contest between the climate change lobby and the the deniers which is partly a debate about the nature of scientific knowledge and what methods and theories we can actually trust?
Many of these issues do inform movies like 'Elysium', 'Oblivion', 'District 9', 'Never Let Me Go', 'The Adjustment Bureau', 'The Road'......
I'm not absolutely sure what that last bit means. You want the usual themes but 'with imaginative projections' - whatever way a theme is projected it's still going to be the same theme or issue.
It probably will be the same issues. These issues are timeless. That doesn't mean they can't be explored in fresh ways. Advances in science often open up new theories and new possibilities. Those new theories/possibilities should inform new ways of telling what are timeless issues.
As for the second bit about current findings and or/ new theories, Sci-fi is often about flights of fancy irrespective of 'current findings', so it doesn't always have to be grounded in the newest findings in particle physics or medical science.
It doesn't, which is why I don't disagree with the rest of your post. There is decent social commentary sci-fi is out there as you listed. However I should clarify that I wrote the above with medical science and particle physics type sci-fi in mind, and in that area, I feel there is a lack of creativity.
Comments
Spot on. Sci-fi is usually about fantastical ideas or philosophical questions or society's fears. As long as the technology works within the diagesis (i.e. world) of the film itself, it doesn't matter if it's applicable to our own reality either now or in the future.
That said, I remember Spielberg consulted with loads of experts when he made Minority Report. He wanted it to feature ideas and innovations that were legitimately on the cards and/or viable. I remember reading one example of a toilet that analyses your health based on, erm, what you put in it. Sadly this was not in the film.
That's only the least of the plot holes in any 'miniaturisation' movie. Starting with "where does all the mass go?" Or does a miniature human weigh the same as a full size human?
Actually in most of the Star Trek i've seen the concept of a moneyless society is upheld. They don't go into too much detail about how things work but you can infer a lot of it. Jake Sissko actually says to Nog in DS9 "I'm human, I don't have any money". It's based in a future where technology has increased to such a level that it is fairly simple for the government to provide people with all of their basic needs. Individuals are then free to carry out careers purely for personal reasons of fulfillment, not in order to survive.
Think of it like this - say you had a town of 1,000 people where the council makes 10 billion a year just by selling rights to it's (unlimited) oil reserves. What type of society should exist in the town - one were a few people receive the money and the rest have to continue working their daily lives, or one where everyone is given enough money so that they don't have to work if they don't want to? Our current mentality is that the first one is right, Star Trek suggests that one day we may see the second choice as making more sense.
Right. Although SF is usually described as a 'box' genre, but diagesis sounds better.
Moving to another note, the core aspect of SF is its tendency to conduct a fictional world to showcase a specific social commentary, which makes it somewhat interesting and sometimes predictable, a lot more than other genres.
For example, Metropolis (1927), Robocop (1987) and Hunger Games (2012) share same themes, politics and plot points. All three highlight and address socio-economic inequalities, capitalism and corporate greed, and the politics of a class-based system. And all three feature a protagonist that's created as a solution to uphold that system, but the protagonist as a solution ultimately turns against its creators through acts of rebellion and violence in the name of free will.
They dont go into that much detail because it exposes the how unworkable the idea is. The convesration you mention ilutrates this perfectly. Jake is left looking like a naive fool. Then again, DS9 always had a slightly more realistic take on things and never shied away from making fun at some of the ST universe's inconsistencies and weaknesses.
Which is fine if that was a universal concept, but it isnt. Other planets use money. Many humans live and work on other planets, if they want to survive and live a confortable lifestyle they need money.
Thats not even close to Roddenberry's concept of a future money-less humanity. His idea was far more naive than that: No greed, no money.
Absolutely agree. The social commentary underpinning the genre is why it's been so interesting to me, eg fear of communism or fear of the atomic bomb in earlier sci-Fi. I love horror for the same reasons...because you can track society's concerns by whatever the genre is doing at a particular point in time (e.g 80s vampire movies and AIDS).
It's interesting that as scientists grapple more with the most fundamental questions of our existence like how the universe was created, what is time, what is consciousness, etc we're getting more metaphysical cerebral sci-fi like Inception, Source Code, that recent one with Johnny Depp, and a whole glut of other films that deal with time, consciousness or alternate realities.
And you get something like The Matrix, which managed to cover the gamut from Marxist ideas to religion to constructed reality to race and power...I'm obviously only talking about the first film and not the shitty sequels.
More importantly, where did the wreckage of the Proteus go. In the movie they left it inside poor Benes. In Isaac Asimov's novelisation, perhaps because he was a real scientist, he got the crew to remove it by having the white cell follow them out.
Humans have been asking those questions for centuries, and metaphysical cerebral story telling been around for as long as we have been asking those questions. None of those are new ideas, science fiction has covered them before many times over, long before Inception, Source Code or The Matrix came along.
Forgot about that one! Plus the large quantity of miniaturised water injected into Benes...
As others have said, films can only envisage a future based on the current technology available, and by logical extension envisage or imagine how that technology might develop.
And its that vision of the future that I often find fascinating - it's not about how they may have got it wrong or were possibly way off the mark.
The Space race was a very good example - back in the 50's, 60's and early 70's it was assumed that the momentum would continue and we would expand to living on the moon, travelling to Mars etc, so that by this current era space travel would be normal, like getting on a plane.
But yet other priorities took over, and that never happened. There is no way that could have been predicted.
So for me, the historical context and the era in which the movie was made is often a fascinating part of watching older sci fi movies, and does not detract from the viewing enjoyment at all.
Surely that confirms that my 'Android' analogy was accurate.
The scene is here if you want to refresh your memory
I did say we're getting "more" of these films. And I didn't say that humans have only just started asking those questions...obviously we know that from the days of the earliest religions or philosophers those questions have been asked.
But any genre has trends that reflect what's going on in the world at that time, where more films are made of a particular ilk, like the more socio-political sci-fi trends we've seen in the past. And our world is obviously much more scientifically sophisticated than it has been to date. So I maintain that the advances of science (e.g. quantum physics) and social sciences (e.g. dream studies in psychology) are absolutely reflected in the sci-fi trends of the 21st century.
But we aren't getting more really. There's been steady stream of these type of movies for decades.
It's nothing we haven't seen previously though. Both those topics for example have been explored by sci fi decades ago. We do live in a more scientifically sophisticated world. A lot of those scientific advances are allowing us to potentially get closer to making theory a reality. But that isn't new, those advances haven't happened overnight, it is an ongoing process. It's that ongoing process, that vision, that has fuelled sci-fi. The science is now catching up with the fiction. That's why those concepts you mentioned have all been explored before. So where do we go from here? All the so called high concept science fiction we're getting now is merely recycled old material...so, where is the visionary style of sci-fi we had decades ago? I don't want sci-fi that reflects what we're only finding now (that was done decades ago). I want sci-fi that explores the usual stuff such as identity, reality, society, etc, with imaginative projections of concepts that are based on current findings and/or new theories.
Well there are actually quite reactionary forces at work in the world today which seem to want to pull us back to medieval times.
As for new theories or ideas, I thought 'Her' was somewhat original as a Sci-fi romance reflecting the modern obsession with gadgetry and social isolation. I suppose it will appear dated in a few years with advances in computer interfaces.
Has 'visionary' Sci-fi suffered from this surfeit of modern mythological 'superhero' movies?
Pretty much that way now, most transactions are done electronically all it is numbers on the screen, money, credits what's the difference...physical cash will be a thing of the past in the not to distant future.
Yes, in Star Trek they had Federation Credits going as far back as the original series, despite Roddenberry's baloney about no money in the future.
I'm not absolutely sure what that last bit means. You want the usual themes but 'with imaginative projections' - whatever way a theme is projected it's still going to be the same theme or issue.
As for the second bit about current findings and or/ new theories, Sci-fi is often about flights of fancy irrespective of 'current findings', so it doesn't always have to be grounded in the newest findings in particle physics or medical science.
I'm more familiar with new thinking in social theory and social sciences. Much of the thinking there is about the dismal performance of economic theory around and after the financial crash in 2008. Much current social science is about the failure and possible reform of capitalism, the increasing inequality between the super-rich and the emerging underclasses, the rise of the super-rich technocracy.
In science is the issue not about the contest between the climate change lobby and the the deniers which is partly a debate about the nature of scientific knowledge and what methods and theories we can actually trust?
Many of these issues do inform movies like 'Elysium', 'Oblivion', 'District 9', 'Never Let Me Go', 'The Adjustment Bureau', 'The Road'......
It probably will be the same issues. These issues are timeless. That doesn't mean they can't be explored in fresh ways. Advances in science often open up new theories and new possibilities. Those new theories/possibilities should inform new ways of telling what are timeless issues.
It doesn't, which is why I don't disagree with the rest of your post. There is decent social commentary sci-fi is out there as you listed. However I should clarify that I wrote the above with medical science and particle physics type sci-fi in mind, and in that area, I feel there is a lack of creativity.