final

Take-Home Final for Fantasy and Science Fiction Media, Spring 2018, MW Section

Instructions Answer any 3 of the questions below. For each answer, discuss one of the imagined worlds assigned in class and a second world of your choice. The three outside worlds you discuss must include the SF or fantasy novel you chose to read; the other two can be movies, TV shows, games, prose or comics. Any film, episode, game or issue in a world can be discussed in your answer, but don’t use any world in multiple answers.

The exam should be typed, double-spaced, in Times New Roman 12-point. The exam is due via email to ted@tedfriedman.com by midnight on Monday, April 30.

Questions Answer 3 of the following questions. Each answer should be at least 2 pages long.

1. Pick two worlds. Discuss and compare how each film extrapolates trends from the time in which it was made to imagine a dystopian or utopian future. Be sure to address both the texts’ narratives and aspects of their mises en scene (such as costumes, sets, visual effects, etc).

2. Pick two worlds. Drawing on Telotte and/or Haraway, discuss and compare the representation of cyborgs, androids, robots, and other forms of artificial and augmented life in each world.

3. Pick 2 worlds. Drawing on Jameson’s concept of “cognitive mapping,” discuss and compare the representation of space in each world.

4. Pick 2 worlds. Drawing on Jameson, Weberman and/or Zizek, discuss how each film represents the postmodern condition and envisions the relationship between representation and reality.

5. Pick 2 worlds. Find an example of fan art (in any medium - video, prose, visual art, etc.) set in one of the worlds. For the other world, create your own piece of fan art. (This could be a very short story, a photoshopped image, a brief video, or a summary of an imagined longer work.) Discuss and compare how each work of fan fiction reimagines and perhaps critiques the original creation’s world.

6. Pick 2 worlds, at least one of which has been remade, rebooted, or adapted to other media. For one world, discuss the differences between the original and at least one of the remakes, and possible reasons for those differences. For the other world, discuss how you would reboot the franchise, and why.

7. Pick 2 worlds. Discuss the relevance of the films for understandng the Trump presidency.

Worlds From class (discuss a different one in each answer): Metropolis, La Jetee, Blade Runner, The Matrix, Children of Men, Her, Chronicle, Mad Max: Fury Road, Twilight Zone, Star Trek, The X-Files, The Walking Dead, Rick & Morty, Black Mirror, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Recommended current TV: People of Earth, Stranger Things, The Good Place, Mr. Robot, Steven Universe, Son of Zorn, HarmonQuest, Great Minds with Dan Harmon

Recommended dystopian worlds: The Handmaid’s Tale, Brazil, Planet of the Apes, The Terminator, Alien, V for Vendetta, Idiocracy, The Hunger Games, Wall-E, Ender’s Game, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Man in the High Castle