analysis scene

INTRODUCTION SPECTACLE AND SPECULATION

Science fiction has become one of the most popular genres* in the

cinema. Once confined Largely to the ranks of lowly B-movies, it has

become the stuff of hundred-million-dollar budgets and massive special

effects. It plays a major part in the landscape of contemporary film,

especially in its dominant Hollywood incarnation. From lurid comtc-book

blockbusters to dark dystoplan* visions, science fiction dominates many

of our movie screens and can be seen as a powerful cultural barometer of

our times. Images that spring to mind when we think of science fiction

cinema might include Star Trel#s Enterprise gliding through space towards

uncharted planets in yet another sequel, a silver-suited FLash Gordon

doing battle with the fiendish M]ng the Merciless, or the shape-shifting

special effects of Terminator 2: Judgement Day (!991). These have become

powerful icons in films watched by mtLlions, yet the genre also extends

into a wider range of industrial, historical and cultural contexts.

Science fiction has deployed a wide variety of aesthetic styles, from the

clunky realism of Destination Moon (195o) to the comic-book fantasy

world of Flash Gordon and the mysttcal or intellectual explorations of

2ooi: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Solaris (1972). Even m the most

sublimely trashy examples, the lure of the genre lies at least partly in ÿts

capacity to open up imaginative possibilities. Through the 'magic' of

special effects, science fiction creates new spaces, dtmensions and

frontiers that re-define the human sphere of operation and often challenge

* terms indicated with an asterisk throughout the book are defined in the Glossary

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

our definitions of what exactly it is to be human. From the expansweness

of deep space to the fractal* world of digital landscapes, science fiction

links visions of science and the unknown to speculations about human

evolution and destiny.

Why exactly is science ficbon so popular m the cinema? How do the

pleasures offered to audiences accord with the commercial goals of the film

industry? This book offers answers to these questions through an overview

of the genre and by locating its forms, themes and concerns within their

social and mdustnal contexts. We argue that science ficbon deals with the

problems and promises offered by science, technology and rationality in an

imaginative context given shape by the aims of the film industry. Science

fiction often draws upon concerns about the defin]bon of the human, a

subject explored through a characteristic play of binary oppositions such as

aben/machine versus human. The cinema of science fiction, hke others, can

be read in terms of the issues with which it appears to engage: a thematic

analys,s, in other words, which seeks to draw out the possible implications of what is found in individual films or genres.

Vanous dÿfferent theoretical perspectives can be used m the analysis of

the dominant themes of science fiction cinema. Several are used,

implicitly or explicitly, in this book. Much of the first section views the

cinema of science fiction from the perspective of issues considered to be

of importance to the society or societies in which it has been produced;

both as an expression of social concerns - especially those revoMng

around issues of science, technology and rationality - and as part of a

cultural process in which such concerns might also be negotiated to some

extent. This kind of reading leads, inevitably, into areas of political and/or

Ideological analysis: the way sensitive or contentious issues are handled

has political Imphcatlons - radical, reactionary or a combination of the

two Issues of socla[-pohtlcal concern, particularly those relating to

gender, are also approached in some cases from a perspectwe informed

by psychoanalytical theones that have loomed large in cinema studies m recent decades.

Much debate continues around the use of any or all of these

perspectwes How legitimate is it to make great claims - social, political

or psychoanalytical - for the form or contents of science fiction films? We

all have our own agendas in this respect The aim of this book is not to

claim 'scientific' status for its arguments. It Is to provide a survey of what

appear to us to be some of the key thematic, formal and industrial

charactenstics of science fiction in the cinema. Some of this may be

considered speculative - like science fiction itself- although efforts have

been made to ground our arguments. Textual analysis is one major source

of evidence; although, as we suggest, different and perhaps competing

interpretations can often be made of the same textual materiaL. Another is

consideration of the industrial contexts wÿthm which science fiction has

been produced. Examination of industrial context, especially that of

contemporary Hollywood, can help to account for many its features.

Social-cuLtural and industrial perspectwes are sometimes divergent,

prowding different explanations for the same phenomena, but sometimes

mutually reinforcing. Study of actual audience reactions is beyond the

scope of this book, however (for an example of an audience study of a

recent Hollywood science fiction film see Barker and Brooks t998, on

Judge Oredd O-995))- Section 1 of Science Fiction Onema examines the dominant themes

that help to give science ficbon its identity. Section 2 considers the

industrial context, focused primarily on Hollywood, as well as dimensions

such as special effects and production design. These approaches are then

combined in a case study of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

('1999)

From the 189os to the current Hollywood romance with special effects

extravaganzas, science fiction cinema has borrowed from a variety of

sources. These range from Greek tragedy and the epic to melodrama and

gothic fiction, from the western and horror novel to the literature of

science fiction. It also exchanges ideas, forms and images with media as

varied as comics, television, radio, wdeo games, rehgion, philosophy and

science itself. Science fiction plays on current controversies about

technologlcal innovations or scientific discoveries, which can provide a

source of dramatic tension and contemporary relevance. Intertextual links*

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

supply science fiction with an abundant source of references that can give

mythic resonance to topical interest. It is precisely science fiction's

diversity and flexibility, through its ability to absorb ÿdeas from other

domains, that has kept the genre ahve for more than a century.

Science fiction has recently enjoyed unprecedented success and

popularity in the cinema. Prompted by the huge box-office earnings of Star

Wars (1977), contemporary Hollywood has invested heavily in the

development of special effects technologies used to produce big-budget

and heavily marketed films such as Independence Day (1996), Armaged-

don (1998) and The Phantom Menace. This is in marked contrast to the

status of science fiction in Hollywood in the 195os. During this period -

now often described as the 'classic' era - science fiction was largely

produced in low-budget 'B' formats, designed for a predominantly

teenage audience. Such films built on the success of science fiction as

a popular literary form, particularly in magazines such as Astounding

Science Fiction 093o-1996), Weird Tales (1923-1954) or EC comics.

Despite the formula]c, sensabonalist and gimmicky nature of some of

these films, they played an important part m shaping the distinctive

themes and forms of the genre. Many can be related to concerns about the

cold war and/or nuclear weapons, including a Large group labelled

'invasion narratives' (see Sontag 1966; BJskind 1983; Tudor 1989;

Jancowch 1996). The decade saw Earth or humanity constantly threatened

by aliens in films such as The Thing (1951_), also known as The Thing (From

Another World), War of the Worlds (1953) and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

0956). Alternatively, the danger comes from humanity's own creations,

usually the bizarre offspnng of radiation experiments, as in The Beast

From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Themt. (1954) and Gojlra (1954).

Another theme of 195os science fiction is the suggestion that people are

being 'substituted' or 'depersonalised' as a result of ahen encounters, a

phenomenon explored in It Came From Outer Space 0953), Invasion of the

Body Snatchers 0956) and The Brain Eaters 0958). The 'meaning' of these

films offers a good example of the different interpretations that can

sometimes be made of popular science fiction. Most obviously, these films

can be taken as a displaced comment on the nature of the supposed threat FIGURE 1 Flash Gordon (ÿ936)

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

represented by the 'inhuman' regimentation of communism. At the same

tlme, however, the idea that people might be 'taken over' in this brain-

numbing manner has been related to concerns much closer to home: the

fear expressed by some sociologists that 195os America was sinking into a

morass of suburban conformity and complacency. Traces of these films

appear in later works as diverse as Village of the Damned (196o), The

Stepford Wives (1975) and Videodrome (t982). Some 195os films, such as

The Day the Earth Stood Still (19511, presented themselves as more 'serious'

and 'respectable' than the routine dnve-m fodder. But many of the low-

budget, comic-book-style films of the decade are now regarded as camp or

trash c[asslcs. Examples such as Plan 9 From Outer Space (1958) and

Queen of Outer Space (1958) are ce[ebrated for their low quabty and

exaggerated depiction of gender. Others are fond[y remembered for their

use of quirky new technologies such as 3D.

The 195os play a pivota[ role in the history of popular science fiction

cinema, looking back to serials of the 193os such as Flash Gordon, and

also taken as a key point of reference for the contemporary Hollywood

blockbuster. The 195os theme of depersonalisatlon has been played for

comic value as far back as the short 'tricks' films of the early cinema,

including George Mÿhÿs' films about automata, Gugusse et l'Automate

(18971 and the now lost Copp61ia ou la Poup6eAnim6e (19oo); the theme is also central to Fritz Lang's bleak vision of the future in Metropolis

(1927). What all these films have in common Is that they deploy the special

effects of their day to create a sense of unfamiliarity and spectacle. The

gadgetry and expioltabon aspects of 195os films proved durable and stiU

attract audiences on television and wdeo. A very different strain of films

was influenced by the intellectual aspirations of the European 'art' cinema

of the 195os and 196os, often working outside Hollywood or in the

independent sector. Films such as 2oo1: A Space Odyssey, Solans, La

Jet6e (1963/, Alphawlle (19651 and Born m Flames (19831 use science

ficbon to explore existenbal and/or pohtica[ questions that were implicit

In some of the films of the 195os. The late 197os saw the emergence of

blockbuster science fiction films that sought and often achieved a much

wider audlence. Star Wars and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) topped the

box-office charts partly by targeting chddren and the 'famdy' audience.The

sclence fiction blockbuster often uses the sale of branded merchandise to

increase its revenues and as a form of marketing for the films themselves.

The science ficbon of recent blockbusters has demonstrated a number of

strategies, including homage to the 195os in Mars Attacks1 (1996) and to

the 196os television sena[ m Lost m Space (19981. It has also maintained

strong links with the disaster movie - Armageddon (1988/, Deep Impact

(1998) - and the horror film - the Ahen quartet (1979, 1986, 1992, 1997),

Event Horizon (1997) and Cube (1997).

It would be a mistake to think of science fiction cinema as solely a

Hollywood phenomenon. Dunng the past hundred years or so science

fiction themes have been tackled in diverse ways, using different aesthetic

strategies m varying national and industrial contexts. Space, science and

technology have provided productive catalysts for the imagination of both

big-budget and independent science fiction film-makers. Nevertheless,

the wealth and global reach of Hollywood has ensured its domination and

its capability to set mdustna[ standards m certain aspects of the genre

such as the quahty of special effects.

Spectacle and speculabon sum up two key dimensions of the genre. In

imaginatwely figuring the future (or an alternative past or present) science

ficbon films can be seen to some extent as measures of the hopes and

fears of the cultures in which the films are produced and consumed.

Science fiction plays a part in shapingthe ways technology impacts on our

lives; often selhng or showcasing technologies, either as an expanded

form of product placement* or through the special effects deployed to tell

the story. The imaginary work of science ficbon might also open up

horizons in the development of 'real' science. Popular interest in wrtual

reahty* technologies has been fuelled by films such as The Lawnmower

Man (1992), Strange Days (1995), eXistenZ (1999) and The Matrix (1999). Rims such as Armageddon and Apollo I3 (1995) play a part m the

promotion of the masswe spending revolved m the Amencan space

programme (see Pen[ey 1997). Scientists may criticise the way their work

Is depicted in science fiction but this provides further confirmation of the

SHORT CUTS

role the genre can play in popular understandings of science and

technology. Whatever Its precise meanings or impact, science fiction has

gone from humb{e and diverse beginnings to its current position as one of

the most popular and lucrative genres in cinema history.

DEFINING SCIENCE FICTION NARRATIVE THEMES

Science Fiction as a Genre

What makes science fiction a distinct genre? Most of us can probably

recognise an example of science fiction when we see it. But what are the

terms m which thls genre Is identified? What exactly makes a film science

fiction? Is ÿt the setting, the characters, the look of the film or the kinds of

plots and themes that are explored? One useful way to open up this

question is the distinction made by RJckAltman (1984) between semantic*

and syntactlc*ways of understanding genre - an approach taken from the

study of language that provides a helpful analytical tool.

A semantlc approach focuses on the umts of meaning: the various

different elements that make up a film or a genre. These umts of meaning

include things hke the setting, for example. So, a science fiction film

might be defined partly in terms of a semantic feature such as a setting

in the future or in another galaxy or dimension. Other semantic elements

include objects such as spaceships and the products of new

technologies. Particular types of characters are also found, including

scientists, cyborgs and aliens. Some semantic features are more specific

to the medium of film. Science fiction cinema might be defined in terms

of a certain visual style or by the use of flashy special effects. This

semantic approach is useful and probably not far from the way we

identify genres m everyday viewing. However, there are limits to how far

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

it takes us. Listing the elements that Identify a film with a particular

genre Js a descriptive approach. It tells us what kinds of elements are

present, but does not say much about how they are used, what their

effect might be or how their meaning might change over time. If we want

to go further, to analyse what these films are doing, it needs to be

combined with a syntactic approach.

In the study of language, the semantic dimension Focuses on the

meaning of indiwdua[ words. Syntax is the grammatical structure into

which these words are organised A syntactic approach to genre, then,

examines how the different elements of meaning are organised. A genre

defined in this way does not depend merely on the existence of the

required elements, but on the organisation of these elements into

recurring and familiar patterns. Much of the first section of this book will

be an examination of some of the thematic patterns into which the various

elements of science fiction films are organised; or, at least, narrative

patterns that are availabLe to be 'read into' them, often Independently of

authona[ intent, and that might be subject to debate.

The combination of semanbc and syntactic approaches recommended

by Altman can prowde a way of understanding the historical deveLopment

of genres and how they might undergo subsequent change. A genre might

exist m its early stage only in semantic terms - a few familiar elements - r

and only gradually develop a stable and reworked syntax. Alternatively,

there might be cases m which the syntax stays the same but some of the

semantic elements change. This is one way of understanding the claim

that a film Like Star Wars is 'really' a western: key semantic elements have

changed (space and spacecraft replace the west and men on horseback),

but the patterns into which they are arranged have much in common. A

combmabon of the semantic and syntactic approaches offers a way of

exploring genres that is especially useful m the analysis of Hollywood,

where many genre boundaries are often blurred. It helps to draw

attention to the flexible qualities of genres. This is more helpful than

attempting to draw up rigid boundaries between one genre and another.

Hollywood has always tended to mix components from different genres,

n an attempt to repeat or play off past commercial success and to appeal

to different secbons of the audience (for the best recent work on these

aspects of genre in Hollywood see Altman 1999 and Neaie 2ooo).

Science fiction, like all genres, is a 'leaky' and relatively unstable

category that borrows from and informs other genres. Like Frankenstein's

creature, it is a hybrid, the body of which is comprised of parts of other

discourses and texts. A number of recent Hollywood blockbusters might

be defined as science fiction, for example, but also as a somewhat fuzzy

mixture of science flcbon and actton-adventure, often with doses of

dÿsaster, romance and comedy thrown m for good measure. We might talk

about some kind of 'grawtational pull' around certain core themes and

styles, but these are always open to negotiation and change. As a genre,

science ficbon needs to add new twists to its conventions and to react to

cultural and technological change if audience interest Is to be maintained.

At the same time, some key themes and images have proved remarkably

reslbent One genre relabonshÿp that has troubled many cnbcs - between

science fiction and horror - wdl be explored later in this section of the

book.

Humamty versus Science, Technology and Rationality

How are the various elements of science fiction films organised? How can

we move from a semantic to a syntactic analysis of the genre, from listing

characterisbc elements to an analysis of the relabonships into whtch they

are patterned? The different elements of films or genres can be read in

terms of patterns of oppositions between different elements. One key

opposition found in science fiction films is between the 'human' and the

products of science*, technology* and rationahty*. The elements of a

science ficbon film might be lined up on one side of this opposition or the

other. The central figure is likely to be representabve of the human. Other

elements, including aliens, computers and cyborgs, might represent an

alternative of one kind or another, although science fiction ÿs often at its

most interesting when the bnes become b[urred.

Many science fiction films can be read as explorations of the fate of

humanity in a world often depicted as increasingly dominated by the

10 11

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

products of science, technology and rationality. Humans are supposed to

embody particular qualities - especially feelings, intuition and emotions

- that often clash with the demands of'scientific' objectivity or rationality.

Science fiction films can be seen as an arena in which we can explore

exactly what it is to be 'human', partly through the juxtaposition between

the human and a variety of opposltes that wÿll be explored in more detai{ below.

This way of reading science fiction films owes much to a structurahst*

approach to cu[tuFa[ products pioneered by the French social anthro-

pologist Claude Lÿvi-Strauss (1968). A structuralist analysis views cultural

products, such as myths or popular films, as devices through which

societies try to work out difficult issues in one way or another, directly or

implicitly. What these products appear to offer in many cases is an

imaginary way of resolving problems that may be impossible to resolve in

reality. They take on board very real difficulties and give the appearance of

bringing about a 'magical' resolution (for a standard reading of genre in

these terms, but one that does not inc[ude science fiction, see Schatz

1981; for a critique, see Neale 1999). Many science fiction films can be

read as offering this kind of imaginary resolution of the opposition

between the human and science, technology and rationality. They often

set up an initial opposition that is eventually reconciled. Real issues are

raised and difficulbes are sometimes tackled quite seriously, but in

mainstream films they are more hkely to be evaded in the pursuit of a

more reassuring narrative closure.

Thls is one area in which readings m terms of sooai-culturai context

can be integrated wlth, or cha[lenged by, considerations of industrial

strategy. The reconci[iation of difficult issues mlght serve a cultural

purpose, in the terms suggested by Levi-Strauss or Schatz, but it is also a

potentia[ source of pleasure for the viewer. A working through and

remova[ of anxieties that are present in the broader cultural context - as

fears of technology are in ours, a subject of frequent media debate and

'scare' stories - offers, potentJal[y at least, the kind of pleasurable release

that might contribute to success at the box office. Social-cultural and

industrial explanations can be mutually reinforcing, but not always.

A specific focus on the industrial dlmension can also provide some

protection against the temptation to make too many generahsed

assumptions about the cultural 'meaning' of popular films. Neither

science ficbon films nor any others 'plug in', immediately, to social

concerns. Such concerns, as far as they are manifested in the cinema, are

mediated through commercial/industrial imperabves. An upsurge or

decline in production within a particular genre, such as science fiction,

mÿght be attributed to changes in the social and historical background;

but it might equally be explained by shifting industrial strategies.

Rational Dreams and Technological Nightmares: Utopia and Dystopla in

Science Fiction Cinema

One way of exploring the thematic oppositions established in science

fiction cinema in more detail is to look at the kinds of futures or

alternatives that are imagined. Are sclence, technology and rabonality

depicted as being generally 'good' things, offering the promise of a better

future? Or are they shown as potentially evil and dangerous, threatening

the future of humanity? Are scientlsts, and the technologies they use,

heroes or villains? Is their 'sclentlfic rationality' a force for the

improvement of mankind or a threat?

One strategy is to imagine a future in which sclence, technology and

rationality hold the promise of a better world, in which our major problems

can be overcome At its most extreme this would present a utopian*

wsion, a perfect, untroubled world. Thls perspective dates back to the

scientific revolution set in mobon in the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries and aided by the key writings of major figures such as

Copermcus and Newton. Science is supposed to offer a means of

challenging ancient superstitions, beliefs and prejudices, providing a

more rational way of understanding and behaving (although it has not

always been seen as incompatible wtth re[igLon). In films that take the

utopian approach sclenbsts are presented as visionaries and heroes. They

are clear-sighted indlwduals who offer a way of escaping our traditional

human vices and creating better worlds.

12 13

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

An example of a film that presents its scientists as rabonal saviours of

humanity is The Day the Earth Stood Still, in which an advanced ahen

power warns the Earth that {t faces destrucbon if its domestic squabbles

threaten to spread beyond the planet The alien KLaatu (Michael Rennie),

who delivers the warning, ÿs presented as mtelhgent, rational and

superior. The film depicts much of humanity as childish, irrational and

inclined to fear and panic. OnLy the bri[hant Professor Barnhardt (Sam

Jaffe) and an array of international scientist colleagues are receptive to

KLaatu's message. The film asserts the importance of rationality, of head

over heart. Rationality is presented as an approach that can conquer

'irrational' behavlour and fear of the unknown. This seems to reinforce an

ideological investment in the expert as potenbaL sawour of the world, a

discourse that had some currency in the 195os, although it is often

countered by a more questioning perspective.

The hero of It Came From Outer Space is positioned in a similar

manner, protecting the alien occupants of a space ship that crash-lands

for repairs from what are presented as the Irrational Fears of others.

Rational scientists are often open to possibilities beyond those allowed by

occupants of more rigld mindsets, an opposition suggested m Quater-

mass andthe Pit(1967), where the scientist-hero is set up in opposition to

an army that can only see terrestrial mdltary implications in the discovery

of buried alien craft. These scientists retain more dlstmctly 'human'

charactenstics, however, particularly a quirky mdividuahsm that acts as a

guard against the more negative potential of the strictly rational. The

scientlst might be linked romanbca[iy with a woman, conventionally seen

as a repository of more human and nurturing values. Thls is a feature of

many films, including War of the Worlds (1953), m which the 'top man in

astro and nuclear physics' (Gene Barry) is paired with a woman closely

associated with 'traditionaL' vaLues of pastoral commumty and family.

Even the coot rationality of Klaatu is mitigated to some extent by his

interaction with a trusting woman and her young son. Too great an

emphasis on 'ratJonahsm' can be a problem, not least for the Hollywood

style of film-making, which revolves around portraits of emotional

mdlwduahsm. If the rationahst utopia ÿs incompatibLe with certain

construcbons of'the human', it also nsks transgressing a basic narrabve

rule of Hollywood. Scepticism can be deployed here in two different ways.

It might be based on scientific and rational principles, but is equally hkely

to be rooted in a suspicious distrust of the scientific point of view. Heroes

of science fiction are often defined as such precisely because they do not

accept expert testimony.

Many soence ficbon films include visions of utopia, but these usually

prove illusory or oppressive. Dream houses turn into prisons, while

rabonahsed and controlled worlds are hable to become hfeless

totahtanan dictatorships. Few soence fiction films buy very far into the

rational utopian dream: technological mghtmares seem to be far more

common. Here we get a very different approach to tssues such as science,

technology and rationaLity. The soentlsts are hke[y to become villains

rather than heroes, even if they set out with the best intentions. In many

science fiction films, technology threatens not to hberate us but to take

over, to dominate or even to destroy humanity. RationaLity is seen as a

threat to the very things that make us human, rather than a corrective to

the worst parts of humamty. Everything that science, technology and

rationahty seemed to promise goes wrong. The bright, clear prospects of

science and technology turn into a gdm nightmare. Dystopia is often

presented as faiLed utopMa, as a demonstration of the dangers of

attempting to engineer any kind of perfect worLd.

There are plenty of examples of this kind of dystopian impulse in

science fiction. The whole of humanity appears to be on the verge of

echpse in the plastic, hÿ-tech world of 2ooÿ: A Space Odyssey, whlch

suggests that humamty is mere[,/a passing stage in a larger process of

evolution guided by higher powers. RatJonalised and imprisoning

futuristic environments are common currency in the genre with examples

ranging from Metropolis to THX I138 (ÿ97o), Logan's Run (ÿ976) and

Gattaco (1997). The fully automated dream house of Demon Seed (ÿ977) is

a typical instance, on a small scale, of the utopian world that turns bad.

The house is full of Labour-saving devices, including vmce-contro[led

doors and a domesbc programme that produces soothing mus{c and

mixes a relaxing drink for the soentist Alex Harns (Fritz Weaver) when he

14

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

comes home after a hard day in the laboratory. Harris has also invented a

new generation of thinking computer, Proteus IV, which creates a cure for

leukaemia in just a few days. Thls is all very hfe-affirming until Proteus

seeks to take charge of its own destiny by holding Harns's wife Ouhe

Christie) prisoner, impregnating her and forcing her to glve bÿrth to its

human-machine hybrid baby. On a broader scale, computer networks or

machines threaten the extinction or slavery of the human species m the

worlds envisioned by The Terminator (1984) and The Matrix. The latter

presents a deliciously grim dystopian portrait of a near-future in which

humans have been reduced to the role of batteries supplying energy to a

race of machines.

Why should the dystoplan version be so much more prevalent than

images of utopia? One reason might be simply that better movies are

made from the dark threats and destruction of technological nightmare.

Any kind of realised utopia might be rather tedious, lacking the tension

and conflict often basic to narrative. Star Trek, in its various film and

television manifestations, is one product that presents a sustained vision

of technologically advanced utopia, on Earth at least, where all divisions

appear to have been solved. But Star Trek spends most of its time

elsewhere, in search of the kind of adventure that is extremely hard to

conjure In the halcyon groves of utopia. Large-scale spectacle, action and

special effects are important aspects of contemporary science fiction, as

will be discussed in Section 2, all of which lend themselves rather more

immediately to the presentation of darker futures or alternatives.

This issue Is taken up explicitly in Demohtlon Man (1993), set in a

version of the twenty-first century in which serious crime has been

eradicated. Sex, kissing, smoking, swearing, using non-educational toys

and eating spicy food are among the many activities deemed illegal in the

interests of a sensib[e rational way of life - the opposite is suggested in

Sleeper (1.973), which presents a 21.73 in which steak, cream pies and hot

fudge are recommended dietary items and tobacco is considered healthy.

Demolition Man offers a parody of twentieth-century political correctness*,

but also makes a case for the values of the Hollywood action film. Police

officer Lenlna Huxley (Sandra Bullock) is a fan of action heroes of the past

- a poster for the film Lethal Weapon (1987) is among the many artefacts

of forbidden twentieth-century culture on her office walls - and longs for

some real action to liven up the dull routine of policing a utopia. This

comes in the form of an escaped criminal from the past. Utopian niceness

grows soft and flabby, the film suggests, and the twenty-first-century

police are incapable of dealing with violence. The only solution is to

defrost from cryogenic prison a tough-but-unconventional police officer,

John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone), and let the violent action fly.

There might also be an historical explanation of the dominance of

dystopian visions. As Vivian Sobchack (1.993) suggests, the bulk of

science fiction cinema has been produced since the dropping of the atom

bomb, which demonstrated the massively destructive capacity of some

scientific developments. Sobchack associates a more utopian strain in

science fiction literature with an earlier period. Nightmarish science fiction

films might also be a way for us to confront some of our fears about

developments in science and technology. A more utopian note is struck by

some representations of science 'fact' The long-standing BBC television

series Tomorrow's World, for example, tends towards an hsn't it

wonderful' attitude towards developments from the cutting edge of

science and technology. Science fiction tends to be more suspicious,

exploring the darker underside of science and articulating real fears about

developments m areas such as nuclear weapons/power or genebc

modification. Nÿghtmarish visions of future or alternative worlds might

also appeal to viewers as a way of making their own worlds, however

troubled, seem comparatively benign.

It would be wrong, however, to suggest that most science fiction films

are entirely dystopian Unmitigated dystopla is only slightly more common

than utopia - most mainstream science fiction cinema has the best of

both worlds, and films often go some way towards reconcdmg the

difference between utopian and dystoplan visions. Science fiction tends

to value and be excited by the possibilities of science, technology and

rationality, but only up to a point Science is portrayed as important, but

as something that must be kept in check: although it is seen as intrinsic to

human endeavour and cunosity, ÿt must not become dominant or threaten

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

the prevailing definition of humanity. It is usually only when science or

technology is allowed to get out of hand that it leads towards dystopia or

apocalyptic destruction. Science and technology are celebrated as long as

they remain subservient to human needs. They are implicitly or explicitly

celebrated every bme a science fiction film presents us with great vistas of

space travel or the amazing transformations performed by futuristic

technologies. The measure of how far we can go along with this Is the

impact on our conception of humanity, as defined by prevalent ideology*.

Humanity is usually defined in science fiction in terms of an additional

dimension that goes beyond the rational into realms of emotion and

feeLing; it may also involve unconventional behaviour and other

expressions of individuality.

Independence Day (1996) is an example in which high-level technology

is depicted as ÿmportant but limited. Techno[ogy by itself is useless

against an a[ien invading force; the alien force-field is immune to misst[e

attacks or nuclear detonation. But the aliens are eventually defeated when

science and technology are combined with a bunch of quirky, idiosyncratic

human qualities, including the inspired up[oading of a computer virus into

the alien system by the off-beat genius David Levinson (Jeff Go[dblum), a

move explained as giving it a fatal cold. Many science fiction films present

us with potentialLy temfying elements of dystopia, in which the survival of

humanity is under serious threat, but in most cases they negotiate an

inventive way out of the ultimate gloomy fate. The quabtJes of humanity

are usually reasserted, if on[y at the last gasp, and reconciled with a more

controlled version of science and technology.

The two Terminator films offer another instructive case. The first film

has a strongly dystopian tone, [eawng us with the impression that

humamty is barely hanging on Jn the future prospect of a war against the

machines. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (t99t) undoes the threat almost

entirely. Starting out with images of the apocalyptic conflagration to come,

the film ends up with changes brought about in the present that ensure

the future will be different: the designer of the new generabon of

computers, which would eventualLy try to wipe out humamty, is convinced

to destroy his work after being shown ewdence of ÿts future outcome. The

Terminator films are able to confront a technological threat to humanity, to

provide the viewer wÿth the spectacular effects that this revolves, and still

to assert that human values will wm out in the end. An opposition

between humanity and science/technology is drawn very starkly, only to

become blurred, especially in the sub-plot of the sequel in which the

original threatening Terminator figure (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is refigured

as the perfect self-sacrificing father. The Matrix also presents a final

triumph of the representabves of humanity, further developing the nobon

of a messÿamc figure who acts as our sawour.

In some cases the conclusions to be drawn are rather less clear-cut

Things to Come (1936) ends with what sounds like a plea for the importance of expanding our scientific horizons, but leaves plenty of

space for a dtfferent reading. The film's vtsion of a gleaming underground

city of the year 2036 embodies many of what have since become familiar

features of the would-be utopia. This world appears to be better than tts

predecessor, a 197os landscape of devastation and warnng barons

created by decades of war and pestilence. It is meant to represent the

restoration of order and civilisation. Imtially the Film seems to establish

character identifications that lead us to choose this prospective future

over the earber world defended by the warlord Boss (Ralph Richardson)

Yet the emissary for what wdl become the future society dedicated to

'order', John Cabal (Raymond Massey), is presented in the somewhat

sinister terms of world government and strength through gigantic air

power. The science for which CabaL is spokesman is rejected by Boss as

'an enemy of everythmg that's natural in life'. The dice seem weighted m

favour of Cabal at this stage, but less so in the latter part of the film set in

a 2036 society ruled by his great-grandson, Oswald. The artist

Thetocopulus (Cednc Hardwicke) starts a rebellion against 'progress',

favouring 'the good old days when bfe was short and merry and the devil

took the hindmost'. When the rebellion takes hold it resembles mob rule

and is aimed at preventing the launch of a probe to be fired to the Moon

by a gigantic 'spacegun'; the viewer seems to be positioned to favour

successful launch rather than rebellion, if only because we want to

witness the spectacle. At the same bme, we are invited to accept some of

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

FIGURE 2 Things to Come (1936)

the case made by Thetocopulus. The inhabitants of the Future celebrate

their subterranean world and ÿts artificial light, mocking those who were

once reduced to living on the surface and had to make do with natural

light from windows, but it is not clear that many viewers would share such

a perspective; not to mention the warning that Cabal's rule is likely to turn

increasingly oppressive and the political connotations of the name

'Oswald' in mid-193os Britain - Oswald Mosiey Founded the Fascist British

Union of Blackshirts in 1932.

A key ÿmplicatlon of most films that tackle questions of utopia and

dystop[a ÿs that attempts to control or sanitise the messiness of 'normal'

life are doomed to Failure. The political implications of thls are potentially

mixed. There is a distinctly conservabve tenor to the suggestion that any

major interventions in the interest of creating a better way of life

automatically translate into imprisoning tyranny. This could be read as

akln to equating all versions of socialism, or any other movement seeking

radlca[ change, wÿth the worst excesses of Stahmsm or fascism.

Demohtlon Mun's picture of oppresslon-by-tedium is played mostly for

laughs, but the suggesbon that a breed of violent heroes from the past ÿs

a source of much-needed vitality has an uncomfortably fasclstic under-

tone. The film seeks to hedge its bets somewhat, however, by ahgnmg the

hero wlth an underground resistance movement fighting to achieve a

supply of food. Mainstream films typlcally mix their messages when it

comes to matters that touch too explicitly on the 'political', keen, as they

usually are, to avoid ahenatmg any potential audiences. Some dystopian

films might be more radical in their pobtical imphcabons. The wsion of

future dystopJa has the potential to be read as implicit cnticJsm of

contemporary life Corporate capitabsm, for example, is singled out for

attack m the dark futures envisioned m Alien (1979) and Blade Runner

(1982) (see Ryan and Kellner 1988; Pen[ey 199o). Proteus IV in Demon

Seed may be a menacing threat in many respects but also stands up to

corporate forces, refusing to cooperate when asked to provide plans For

the commercial exploitation of the sea bed.

Whatever its pohtJcs, rabona[ control is often presented as elusive. In

Jurusslc Park (1993) a range of scientific controls Js supposed to be in

place to prevent the dinosaurs getting out of hand Only females are

created and all have an in-built fault: they cannot create the essential

amino acid, lysine, which means they will die ff not provided with a regular

dose. Into this ordered world come the pnnc]ples of choos theory* as

explained by 'chaotician' lan Malcolm Oeff Goldblum) who predicts that

'nature will find a way' around the imposed restrictions. He is proved

right, of course: once again, there would not be much of a film if

everything worked according to the dictates of rational science.

Yet chaos theory is itself an attempt to apply rational understanding to

shapes and events that defy predictabibty and the linear qualities of

convenbonal science. Its fractal patterns, explored in the work of Benolt

Mande[brot (ÿ982), have moved from the esotenc domain of pure

mathematics to the world of popular culture, including some works of

science fiction. Computer-generated fracta[ patterns are famdJar totems of

20 21

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

recent 'New Age' culture; their appeal is based on their ability to

simuLtaneousLy embrace aspects of such seemingly different realms as

art, nature and science. Some of these issues are taken up in = (1998), a

Low-budget independent film that draws on science fiction themes. The

centraL character, MaximtUian Cohen (Sean GuLlette), is searching for

predictable patterns in the movements of the stock exchange. He

discovers that the universe Is composed of patterns produced by random

effects and not governed by a conventional structure of linear cause-and-

effect. SpiralLing fractals are evident in the film's recurrent images of

sheUs, [eaves, the sea, computer code and the Mandel6rot set*. The

pattern is presented as a career of mystical and universal significance.

Given its power, from the worLd of nature to commerce, it is not surprising

that Max's discovery is coveted by big business and a group of Hasidic

Jews Looking for the numeric name of God. Utopian enlightenment might

be promised, but Cohen is thrown instead into a nightmarish worLd of

conspiracy, magic and madness.

Travels in Space, Time and Scale

A key ingredient of science fiction cinema is travel through space or time.

The ability to visit other or alternative worlds is a major appeal of the

genre. Journeys into space or through time - or both - provide the

opportunity to explore a range of issues. A shift into another galaxy or the

past is a way to gain a different perspective on the concerns of our own

place and time, as is a change of scale to microscopic or giant

proportions. The speculative mode of science fiction has always included

the potential to ask politically-informed questions about our own society.

Relocating the treatment of sensitive issues to somewhere on the other

side of the universe or m other dimensions is a handy way to avoid too

much controversy or censorship, but much science fction implicitly raises

concerns close to home, however exotic or distant the setting. Travels in

space, time and scale are also major sources of the spectacular and

sensational pleasure of science fiction. Cinema has expLoited the

spectacular potentiaL of space travel since its earliest days in films such

as Mÿliÿs' Le Voyage dans la Lune (1_902). Futuristic space travel offers an

exhilarating sense of freedom and speed. The space ship that 'zaps'

across the screen in a blazing streak of Light Js a joy in its own right, as is a

time-traveLling device such as the DeLorean car in the Back to the Future

series (1985, ÿ989, 199o). Changes of scale also offer scope for the

production of spectacular imagery, whether the back yard as vast jungle in

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) or the inside of the body turned into a

strange alien Landscape in Fantastic Voyage (1966) or InnerSpace (1987).

Film-makers have been presented with two broad alternatives in the

depiction of space travel. One option is to take a generalLy 'reaListic'

approach, in which the enterprise is shown in terms that make an effort to

seem relatively plausible at the time the film is made. The other Is to go for

aU-out fantasy, leaping directly to the imagination of capacities way

beyond the bounds of current possibility. Like so many other useful

distinctions, however, this one Is far from entirely stable. 'Realism' and

'fantasy' are complex constructions that often overlap or Interpenetrate in

science fiction as elsewhere. The most 'realistic' science fiction always

involves elements of fantasy, just as the wildest Jmaginings usually seek

to estabhsh some sense of realism or believability in their own terms.

A classic example of the realist approach is Destination Moon (195o),

which presents itself with the sobnety of a pseudo-documentary, despite

garbing its astronauts in brightly coloured suits to show off its Techmcolor

photography. Made years before the first rockets went into orbit, the film

bases its specuLative version of the lunar landscape on real pictures of the

Moon's surface rather than any great exercise of the imagination. The

journey proceeds slowly, even tediously, in its determination to establish

a sense of solidity and believability. A similar approach is taken in this

sense by the otherwise far more speculative and spectacular 2oo1: A

Space Odyssey, which devotes long stretches of time to estabhshmg

plausibility through the quality of its special effects. The dour approach of Destlnatlon Moon might be contrasted to the more lurid design of the

aLien landscapes envisioned in its near-contemporary This Island Earth

(1954). The distinguishing feature may be the style in which a film Is shot,

or the parameters of its fictional premise. The style of This Island Earth

22 23

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

remains solidly realist, the more fantastic dimension being provided by

the representation of a distant world.

Fhght to Mars (ÿ951), similarly, takes us from an attempt to create a

seemingLy 'realistic' reconstruction of space flight to a series of more

fantastic specuLabons about life on Mars. The way this is articulated

entails a number of contradictions typical of the knots into which attempts

to arrive at settled conceptions of realism can become tied. The solid

'ordinariness' of Its space flight is signified by the fact that the crew wear

everyday cLothes rather than futuristic space suits and are untroubled by

any effects such as zero gravity: they sit and stand chatting and drinking

coffee just like characters from any Earth-bound drama, one of the men

attempting a chchÿd chat-up routine on the woman member of the crew.

Thls is 'realistic' in one sense, making an appeal to the familiar and

quotidian, while entirely 'fantastic' In another: the 'ordinary' becomes

unrealistic in an extraordinary setting. Destination Moon makes ciatms

towards realism by going to some trouble to take seriously the

implications of zero-gravity; Fhght to Mars takes an opposite approach.

It inserts a brief line of dialogue about a gyroscopic device on the rocket

that keeps everything the nght way up and then ignores the issue. Which

Is more realisbc? There is no single answer. 'Realism' is a quality that can

be constructed rhetoricalLy or asserted in different ways and that might

often be secondary to budgetary constderations. The same kind of

question could be asked about the Martians found m Flight to Mars, who

turn out to be humanoid fgures just hke us. ts this reahsbc or fantastic? It

gives the film a more reahstic texture than might be found in a film that

attempted (with limited means) to envisage ahens of fantastically different

appearance, but is hardly realistic in the sense of plauslbdtty. But, then,

what is a realistic representation of something unknown? This is an tssue

to which we will return m the discussion of special effects in Secbon 2

If no definitive distinction can be made between realism and fantasy, it

ts still the case that some science fiction films have a greater investment

in appeals to one or the other. More overtly fantasbc visions, distantly

extrapolated from contemporary possibility, have tended to dominate the

science fiction boom of the past two decades. The slow and painstaking

style of 2OOl, for example, has been utilised less frequently than the

flashiness and speed of the 'space opera' tradition rejuvenated by Star

Wars. Thts is often more fun; or, at least, offers a different kind of

enjoyment. It is easier in works of more extreme fantasy to offer immediate

thrills, action and spectacle, because there are fewer constraints on what

might be included. The scope that fantasy offers for spectacle and

excitement mÿght account for a relabve absence of films based around real

space programmes. This issue is taken up m The Right Stuff 0983), in

which the early American astronauts on the Mercury programme are

compared with a group of jet test pilots and found wanting m traditional

heroism. The astronauts are depicted as too deeply ÿmmersed m a web of

technology, struggling continually to create any kind of space for indtvidual

heroics other than nskmg being blown up on the top of a rocket. It ÿs

sigmficant that the only major film based on the Apollo Moon programme

is Apollo 13, which focuses on the mission that went wrong. It ÿs the fadure

of technology, in this case, that enables the astronauts to prove their worth

and to vabdate the merits of human mgenmty in the face of impending

disaster Within the film, and in the histonca[ reabty, zt is the crisis that

permlts the neglected space programme to regain its teLevlslon audience,

and much the same goes for its transLation onto the cinema screen.

A third optlon is explored by some films: to use more or Less rea[isbc

contemporary space craft upgraded just enough to permit them to indulge

In an extra level of action and heroics. Armageddon offers a good

example. The space shuttles engaged in a mission to prevent an asterold

hlttmg the Earth have special modtficabons, we are told. These enable

them to perform the spectacular antics requlred by both the mission and

the kind of Bruce Wdbs action vehicle that the producers have m mind,

stunts that would no doubt np any real space shuttle to shreds. And

action heroes simply cannot be allowed to bounce around on alien terrain

in the undignified and uncontrolled manner of those who really landed on

the Moon. The crew in Armageddon are shown video footage of Nell

Armstrong and assured that their new Direcbona[ Accelerant Spacesuit

will enable them to move more freely, in a manner befitting the stars of a

noisy HolLywood blockbuster.

24 25

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

In The Time Machine (196o) a Victorian inventor (Rod Taylor) does not

move in space but backwards and forwards in time in his elegant, sledge-

Like machine. Travelling forward, he reaches a distant future in which a

vicious class war is in progress. This allows the inventor to take on the

guise of an action hero, prompting the gentle and downtrodden Eloi to

revolt against the oppressive and exploitative Morlocks. Muscular and

morally correct (Christian) science rescues future mankind from oppres-

sion. The fact that atomic science is implicated in a war that destroys

London is ignored. Time travel serves here as a way to make universal

claims for the particular definition of humanity dominant in the America of

the mld-twentleth century. All human experience, whatever the time or

culture, is reduced to a single constant. The scientist is an ingenious

inventor and, like the BBC's Dr Who (1963-1989), the film promotes

science as both a 'Boy's Own' adventure and a creative, heroic force.

Te{eportmg forward to the 19Bos and Back to the Future (ÿ985), time

travel has a slightly different focus, although still implicated in the

construction of an idealised version of society. When Marly McFly (Michael

J Fox) travels back in time he returns to his mother's halcyon teenage

years in the mid-195os. Despite all the gizmos in the DeLorean time

machine invented by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), this is a very home-

and family-centred film, nostalgically constructing the 195os as more

benign than the liberaL or decadent 198os, in which the Local picture

house has become a porn cinema. McFly's intervention in the past

changes the character of his family, magically creating a future/present in

which they are more sophisticated and successful. One of the pleasures of

the film, understood from the perspective of psychoanalytically based

theories, might involve the fantasy of witnessing, improving and having a

controlling hand in our own creation, and even perhaps realismg

'incestuous desires' (Penley ÿ99o: 122). This becomes a more complex

and hazardous experience in Back to the Future Part II (1989), in which

alternate pasts and futures, not all benign, begin to multip[y.

Time travel broadens the visual scope of science fiction because it

aLlows ÿts stars to be shown m various costume styles and interacting with

mportant hÿstorical events. This tends to reduce history to simply a

difference in visuaL styLe that is often figured in terms of film genre

convenbons, such as the western background to Back to the Future Partlll

(t99o). History is usualLy fixed within the confines of one particular

interpretatlon, desplte constant warnings about the dangerous effects of

tampering wlth the past. Time travel narratives such as A Connecticut

Yankee In King Arthur's Court (ÿ949), The Nawgator: A Medieval Odyssey

(1988) and Terminator 2 often portray the fictional present as 'better',

more liberaL, clever and benevolent, and therefore more 'advanced' than

the past or future. La Jet6e and Twelve Monkeys (1995) also render their

respective presents as more palatable than the abenating confines of the

post-apocaLyptic future. The effect is like that suggested in other cases of

dystopia: however bad our own time might sometimes seem, it is

positively bountiful compared with some of these alternatives. We are

invited to enjoy the action, thrills and spectacle unleashed in such worlds

from a position of safety. The dystopias of recent Hollywood science

ficbon have a seductive appeal to some viewers, combined with a sense

of horror (see Barker and Brooks 1998, for interviews with a range of

audlence groups, especially the transcripbons on 278-8o). The time travel

Film sometimes offers the fantasy of escape from historical determmlsm*

In favour of a typicalLy Hollywood celebrabon of the ideology of individual

freedom: 'no Fate' as Sarah Connor (Lmda HamiLton) writes, emphatlca[[y,

n Terminator 2.

The dimensions of outer space and altered human scale are not always

seen as distinctly separate Jn science fiction, the classic instance of

confiation being the philosophical tone adopted in the ending of The

Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). The tortured hero Robert Carey (Grant Williams) eventually finds peace and acceptance as he climbs out into the

vast expanse of the world from the basement of the former home from

which he has become estranged. 'The unbelievably small and the

unbelievabLy vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle',

he muses, as we are presented with images of swirling gaLaxies. Space

flight prompts a similar kind of phitosophlsing m Fhght to Mars when one

of the screntist-astronauts proposes an equivalence between the

eLements that make up the vast universe and the corpuscles that

2B 27

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

FIGURE 3 The Incredible Shnnkmg Man (I957)

comprise the interior 'universe' of the human body. Our own world can be

opened up to view from radically different perspectives. A key plot

element of Men in Black (1997) is the recovery of a lost jewel that contains

an entire swirbng galaxy in miniature; the film closes with a shot in which

the camera pulls back hyper-kineticaUy to reveal our own gaLaxy to be

nothing more than the contents of a marble in a game played by aliens

Much of the appeaL of The Incredible Shrinking Man and its various

derivatives -including The Incredible Shrinking Woman (198t) and Honey,

I Shrunk the Kids - lies in the juxtaposition of familiar figures and objects

at different scales. The diminution of Carey is measured by the increasing

size of domestic furniture, equipment and creatures. At one point the

domestic cat is a giant, transformed Into a horror fiLm monster; a role

adopted later, at another scale, by a spider. The film establishes a general

sense of disorientation within famiLiar environments, occasionally pLaying

tricks to keep our sense of scale uncertain. Later, we cut to a scene where,

momentanly, Carey appears to have been restored to normal size, judging

by the furmture, although he turns out to have moved into a doll's house.

The equally tortured title figure of The Amazing Colossal Man (ÿ957) finds objects capable of interesting him, at his own scale, m the shape of a

giant crown and sbpper that form part of the decoration on the fa(ÿades of

Las Vegas casinos. The Incredlble Shrinking Man gives the narrabve of

changed scale an existentialist slant as Carey's series of ddemmas are

used eventually to assert the indomitable nature of the 'human spirit'.

The sub-genre also has potential for forays into the world of domestic

polibcs, a more expbclt feature of The Incredible Shrinking Woman and

the two versions of Attack of the 5off Woman (1958, ÿ993), in whtch an

abused wife gets her revenge on an adulterous and plotting husband after

an aben encounter turns her into a giant.The original gives us little access

to the interior world of the prodigious Nancy Archer (Albson Hayes), but in

the remake the same character (Dary[ Hannah) finds strength and peace at

her new scale. These qualities are transferred to two other women

characters m the remake, gMng it a stronger feminist tinge, even if Archer

meets the same unfortunate end in both versions. If a dolL's house

becomes a habitable space for the shrinking man, the 'real' world takes

on toy-like proportions for the giant: cars and people can be picked up

and thrown at wdL In narratives of shrinkage, the ordinary becomes

strange, monstrous or forbidding. Fleas are deployed as miniature

weapons in The City of Lost Children (1995), offering scenes from a flea's

perspective m which the human body becomes a vast and often grotesque

spectacle. Giganticlsm can create sÿmiLar effects from the opposite end of

the scale. The terrifying 'normal' spider of The Incredible Shrinkmg Man

becomes the giant ants of Them1 (t954), the assorted bugs of Starship

Troopers (1997), or, in order of silbness, the four-foot tall rabbits of Night

of the Lepus (ÿ1972) and the mutant tomatoes of the parodlc Attack of the

Killer Tomatoes (ÿt978). Science ficbon has the capacity to transcend our

famdiar understandings of space, time and scale, potentially to raise

chaLlenging issues about the nature of the world; more often, however,

these are passed over fatrly rapidly in the interests of spectacular fun and

entertainment.

28 29

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

Construcbng Otherness- Artificial Intelhgences, Aliens and Cyborgs

From Metropolis to Manga* films, much of the dramatic and structural

tension of sctence fictton derives from the construction of a primary

difference between the 'human' and the 'other'. This d{fference can take

diverse forms, but there are some consistent images, desptte shifts in

technology. In Metropohs the robot Maria embodies the inhuman qualities

of the mechanical age. The fiLm depicts the workers as so regimented that

ideals such as love and family are subsumed under the aegis of

production. The film thus prowdes an implicit critique of the Logic of both

capitaLism and StaLinist communism. The robot is a ubiquitous figure m

various stages of science fiction. The robot - or later the computer,

android, cyborg or artifictal intelligence - Is rendered good if it serves

human goals. Prominent exampLes include Robbie the robot from

Forbidden Planet (t956), with 'his' prodigious ability to repbcate any

kind of material, and Data in the new generation Star Trek, who is deeply

fascinated by human behavtour and serves the human-defined goals of

Star Fleet Command. Both are tailored to obey the requtrements of Isaac

Asimov's manifesto for the programming of robots, the primary ruLe of

which dictates that they must not harm humans (from the 'Handbook of

Robotics', 56th edttion, 2058 AD, cited in % Robot', 1971).

This scheme also applies to aLiens. FriendLy abens, such as those

found in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (ÿ977) or E.T. The Extra-

Terrestrial, seem to serve human interests. They offer reminders of some

of the spectficaLLy 'human' qualities that might be under threat on Earth. In

The Day the Earth Stood Still, untypically, it is the need for cool rattonality

that is positively promoted. In Close Encounters, E.T. and Cocoon (1985)

the opposite appears to be the case: the aliens are characterised as warm,

emottonal and caring and the audience ÿs bathed in what purports to be

something close to a sense of rehgious exaLtabon. The qualities offered by

the ahens appear to make up for elements of family breakdown prominent

in the visions some of these films provide of life on Earth, visions that

come with a strong implicit pohtics focused on the absence of the

'natural' father. Aggressive alien coLomsers in War of the Worlds, Mars

FIGURE 4 Forbidden Planet (:ÿ956)

Attacksf, Independence Day, Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) and Star

Trek: First Contact (1996) eschew human values in favour of pursuing their

own usuaLLy cold and 'rationaL' goals. Evil aliens can be read as metaphors

for a range of percetved threats to humamty, or particular groups, ranging

30 31

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

from 195os communism to the AIDS virus and contemporary 'illegal aliens'

of human origin. The alien as lethal virus is presented in The X Rles Mowe

(1998). A conflatlon of extra-terrestrial and terrestrial alien is common

currency. TheArrival (1996) has its aliens set up base in Mexico, just south

of the American border, and when they assume human form it is usually in

a guise of Mexican appearance (see Dean 1998) Fear of'alien intrusion' is

thus given what might be seen as spurious justification as if freed of the

racism implicit in its more quotidian variety, an issue played for laughs in

Men in Black and gwen more complex treatment m The Brother From

Another Planet (1984) and Ahen Nation (1988). The alien in The Brother From Another Planet, a low-budget

independent film, is black, crash-[anding at Manhattan's Elhs Island

Immigration Centre. Ending up on the streets of Harlem, he seems more at

home than either the two white-skinned ahens who pursue him or two

white conference-goers who wander into the neighbourhood by accident.

The ahen Is adopted by a supportive black culture, despite oddities such

as hÿs lack of speech, particularly when his pursuers pose as agents of the

immigrabon service. Alien Nabon gwes us the ahen 'newcomer' as an

abused minority popu[atlon m America; 3oo,ooo genetically engineered

workers hawng been stranded on earth by an mtergalacbc equivalent of a

slave shÿp As a blend of science flcbon and 'cop' thriller, however, we

should not be surprised that the film evades the pohtical issues in favour

of the assertion of umty at the individual level of a 'buddy' relationship

between white and alien detectives.

Thÿs is a strategy typical of Hollywood producbon. Potentially

contenbous political ÿssues form a point of reference. Their impbcations

are not exp[ored m detail because this is considered [ike[y to be dMswe

and aIienatmg to audiences seeking 'entertainment', which ÿs usually

understood as entaihng the avoidance of expUcÿt[y 'pohbcal' material. A

focus on two central characters offers both a means of avoiding the

larger issue and of offering a reconcdiation of the individual relationship:

it is much easier to reconci[e two indiwdua[s of different backgrounds

than to solve social prob[ems. The individual reconcihabon offers an

emotional pay-off. How this works in terms of the issues can be seen

from different perspectives. The reconcdiation of indwidua[ representa-

tives of different ethmc groups (or, m this case, species) might be taken

as symbohc of the possibihty of a broader reconcihatlon of social

conflict. In this view, Alien Nation could be seen to be engaging in a work

of real cultural negotiation. The extent to which Hollywood films focus on

these dynamics at the level of the mdwidua[, however, might be seen

more critically, from an ideological perspectwe. What is offered, in this

account, is a subsbtute for any real engagement with the issues: a device

that masks real and enduring conflict through the illusion of magical

reconciliabon. Alien Nation and The Brother From Another Planet both

resort to plots in which drugs p[ay a central ro[e, further underlining the

potentia[ly racist equivalence established between black and alien

subcultures.

The 'good' ahen of science ficbon somebmes takes on the patina of a

kind of God figure. Klaatu in The Daythe Earth StoodStill adopts the name

Carpenter, 'goes among the people', is kdled, resurrected and ascends

into the sky: clearly established as Christ-[ike. A similar pattern is found

in E.T., where the extra-terrestrial also has mÿraculous healing powers

transferred through a g[owing fingertip, a quality parodied in the magical

touch of the ahen in The Brother from Another Planet. The 'bad' allen is

more [ike the dew[, a figure hteralised in Quatermass and the Pit-, the film

suggests that historical descriptions of Satan might have been based on

the appearance of horned creatures from Mars. Most aliens seem to line

up fairly clearly on the 'good' or 'bad' sides of the equation, but there are

more equivocal cases. The guiding mte[bgence of 2ooi, for example, takes

on god-like proportions, hawng effectively created humankind, but is also

distant and overwhe[mmgly strange, largely as a result of not being

directly represented at all.

Since the ÿ96os, computers and artificial mtelhgences have been

presented among the principa[ embodiments of the 'other' located within

technology. Although created by humans, they sometimes develop

consciousness beyond the human and, like Proteus iV in Demon Seed,

may come to regard humanity as flawed and outmoded. The imphcations

of AI (Artificla[ Inte[bgence) are also taken up in Johnny Mnemomc (t995),

32

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

influenced by cyberpunk*, In which a dead woman scientist Is uploaded

Into a computer matrix and, as a 'ghost in the machine', haunts the

chairman of an exploitative bio-chemlca[ company. This AI works on behalf

of humanity, preventing the company from withholding a cure for a fatal

disease described as a product of 'technological clviLisation'. Many of

these films offer a simple and straightforward distinction between the

human and the other, defined respectively as 'good' and 'bad'. Some

obscure the distinction, to unsettling effect.

Recent science fiction has been troubled by the impbcations of genetic

engineering and cyborg* technology. The 'replicants' of Blade Runner,

made in the image of humans, return to Earth to confront their maker in an

attempt to reverse their in-built short life expectancy. The repIicants begin

to develop emotions, a key indicator of'human' qualities. Rachae[ (Sean

Young), a later model, has also been supplied with ersatz memories - a

personal history - and is unaware of her artificial status (see Landsberg

995). Given that Rachael is the love interest of the main character,

Deckard (Harrison Ford), sympathy is created for her devastatingly

ambiguous status. Further intimations, especially m the 'director's cut'

version of the film, indicate that even Deckard is a repllcant. In the world

of genebc engineering our usual measures cannot guarantee an ability to

detect 'natural' origin or Identity. The thematic power of the film lies in

blurring the boundary between human and replicant, creating uneasiness

that is given a contemporary edge by real-world developments in cloning

and other forms of genetic modification.

The figure of the cyborg has potentially liberating political dimensions,

according to Donna Haraway's influential 'Manifesto for Cyborgs' (1985).

Not necessarily constrained or defined by gender or biological function,

the cyborg offers a means of escaping conventional ÿdentities or

ideologies This potential is rarely realised in science fiction cinema.

Blade Runner tends to sideline any such aspects in favour of dystopian

paranoia. The cyborg has often been constructed through images that

offer a hyper-conformity to dominant constructions of gender, the most

prominent example being the armoured muscularity of Arnold Schwarze-

negger's Terminator. Haraway's argument can be applied, but only with

qualification, to Ahen Resurrection (!997). In the previous three Alien

films the central character, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), stands as an

emblem of the human. She fights dehumanising enemies in the form of

the alien and the corporation that seeks to exploit its potenbal for

military technology. Her toughness is tempered by a 'feminine' nurturing

quality that allows her to save various child surrogates (not to mention

the whole of humankind). In Alien Resurrection Ripley Is no longer quite

herself. She has undergone a genetic fusion with the alien, giving her

some of the attributes of the cyborg. The resulting creation is strongly

informed by Ripley's basic humanity, however, which enables her to kill

her alien child and also rescue and nurture the more human-looking

cyborg, Call (Wlnona Ryder).

Ripley and Call offer a fantasy of a knowable othemess. They both

embody human attributes and goals, unlike, for example, the cold and

'beyond good and evil' Borg of the Star Trek: The Next Generabon

television series (ÿ987-1994) and Star Trek: First Contact (1996). Ripley

and Call are not too radically other; both retain some 'femlmne'

characteristics alongside a kick-ass toughness. Star performers play both,

a fact that limits the extent to which we are ever likely to view them as

radically 'other'. Neither quÿte knows who they are but together, as a

mother and daughter team, they save the world. They are still guided by

principles of humanism and conventional gender difference, through the

foregrounding of nurturing qualibes, and so do not go very far towards

fulfilling the premise of Haraway's radical feminist manifesto. Figures of

the woman warrior can serve to question conventional definitions of

'passive' femininity. This is not to suggest that the transgression of

dominant gender codes is always (or only) a radical or disruptive process;

transgression, of various kinds, is somebmes offered by the mainstream

film industry as part of its appeal, to lure viewers with the promise of

elements that are usually forbidden. In most cases, however, an inherent

conservatism - a desire not to offend potential filmgoers - ensures that

mainstream productions do not transgress too far from dominant and

familiar constructions of gender difference. This approach often results in

a mixture that might appear incoherent, merely trying to have it all ways to

34 35

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

appeal to a range of audiences, or as a way of seeking to reconcile major

cultural differences and contradictions Scope remains for a vanety of

different readings, including potentially those that contest dominant

assumptions.

The threat from the terrifying abens of the Alien series is compounded

by the machinations of a simster corporation. The crew are set up in Ahen.

What they believe to be a rescue mission ÿs in fact a conspiracy hatched to

bring the allen back to Earth m the hope that its prodigious military

potential mÿght be exploited; the crew are expendable. Conspiracies of

one kind or another often seem to entangle alien encounters in recent

science fiction. This is a central theme of TheXFiles Mowe and the original

television series (1993-present) but is also found to varying degrees in

many other films, regardless of whether the aliens themselves are

charactensed as benign or threatening. In both Close Encounters of the

Thlrd Kind and E.T. the aliens make contact wlth ordinary Americans. This

relationship is threatened by the intrusion of sinister government forces

that eventually invade the domestic sanctum in E.T. m a manner that

renders them more alien than the extra-terrestriaL

Independence Day, like The X Files, plays explicitly on the conspiracy

[ore surrounding the alleged ahen crash-landing at Roswel[, New Mexico m

1947. The claim that bodies were recovered, and that the truth has since

been suppressed, ÿs supported by both fictions Lÿke Close Encounters

and E.T., however, Independence Day offers a way out of the conspJratona[

labyrinth. The presldent discovers the truth and is eventually able to

restore proper democrabc control He goes to 'Area 5ÿ', sees the alien craft

and the bodies, sacks a duplicitous cabinet member and leads the

counter attack against alien invasion. The conspiracy is shown to be real,

but also disentangled. This seems to fit the pattern of cultural products

that raise difficulties only to brush them away again. Little of the kind is

offered by The X Files. Temporary victories are achieved by Mulder and

Scully, but for each dimension of the conspiracy uncovered several more

appear to be generated, including at times the possibility that the

underlying 'truth' about alien contact is itself no more than a cover story

for other concealed government machinations. This is partly attributable

to the series context of the television and cinema franchise, which

requires a lengthy and on-going plot, and partly a quality inherited from

the Hollywood conspiracy mowes of the early 197os.

For some alien-conspiracy theories, science fiction cinema itself is a

prime ingredient in campaigns of misinformation. One widely circulated

rumour is that the US government formed an alliance with the ahens that

has subsequently broken down. The conspiracy theory suggests that the

series of films featunng 'nice' aliens in the early t98os was made at the

brae of the albance as part of a government strategy to prepare people for

the future revelation of extra-terrestnal contact. The harsher portrayal of

ahens that has followed in many films is interpreted as post-alliance

preparabon for potential confrontation (see Dean ÿ998). Bruce Rux (ÿ997)

suggests, mock-senously, that the silliness of many ÿ95os science ficbon

films was part of a dehberate misinformation strategy in which aspects of

'real' UFO-encounter information were associated with daft plots m order

to discredit the whole idea of ahen contact Rux is an advocate of the

theory that a[ong history of alien encounters can account for many of our

ancient mysteries and technologies dating back at least as far as the

pyramids, a line explored in Stargate 0994), although he wou[d doubtless

convict the film of trying to associate such important 'facts' with the stuff

of idle fantasy.

Gender, Sex and Sclence Fiction

Genres are often seen as being gendered. Wlth its focus sometimes on

science and technology as 'toys for the boys' and its relationshlp to

genres such as horror and the western, the appeal of science fictLon might

be considered chiefly to be masculine. This argument mlght be levelled at

a recent example such as the multi-genre brew that constitutes Starship

Troopers, a sclence fiction that contains dlstmct elements of both horror

and the western. To help counter any mascubne blas some sclence ficbon

films include elements of romance and melodrama, providing an address

to conventional industry understandings of what attracts a female

audience (for more about Hollywood's assumptions on this subject, see

36 37

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

Kramer t998). Stership Troopers makes its own effort in this direction,

including a central romantic narrative component Launched in an early

section that obeys the convenbons of the more femaLe-onented hÿgh-

school genre. Star Wars aLso works quite hard to appeal to a female

audience through the design of the feisty character of Pnncess Leia (Carne

Fisher). Film viewing is a complex process and It would be a mistake to

categoncal[y label science fiction as simply a 'masculine' genre. Science

fiction cinema often juxtaposes a 'mascuhnised' science to a 'feminised'

nature or otherness, but it Is important to note that films often produce

contradictions in their attempts to appeal to different audiences. Starshlp

Troopers, hke Ahens (ÿ986), presents both men and women among the

tough fighting corps, even if the woman marked as the principal romantic

interest for the leading man remains above the fray most of the time as

the pilot of a starship.

Films can also be read 'against the grain', in ways that might not have

been Intended, or to bring out sub-textual themes that might not be

obvious This might be achieved through camp, queer* or feminist-

informed readings, for example, or the cult revaluation of films formerly

regarded as poorly made. Plan 9 from Outer Space is the classic example

of the latter, ce[ebrated precisely for the endeanng qualities of its trashy

effects and story. The film belongs to a group of low-budget sctence

ficbon/horror hybrids in which the moral order is threatened by 'pewerse

monsters', which allow these films to be re-claÿmed as opening a 'space to

figure queer desire' (Benshoff 1997: 159). Monsters m 195os science

fiction have been read as articulating a fear of homosexuabty. Harry

Benshoff argues that in films such as Creature From the Black Lagoon

(1954) the monster is 'queer' because it interferes with the smooth

running and consummabon of heterosexual romance, a dÿmension

gnored by cfibcs who focus solely on the monster as a symptom of

anti-commumst paranoia. Benshoffargues that a fear of homosexual men

who 'pass' as straight underlies the narrative of I Married A Monster From

Outer Space (ÿ958), in which the alien/husband prefers to meet strange

men In a public park rather than stay at home with his wife. The obwous

gendermg of the actwe maLe hero who rescues an endangered, stiletto-

wearing woman, an image prevalent in the B-movies of the 195os, ts also

open to pluraL readings. From one perspectwe, this appears to be a clear

and confident expression of dominant constructions of mascuhmty It can

also be viewed rather differently, however, exposing this brand of

masculinity as an arbltrary construct in need of reinforcement through

exaggerated images of male super-hermcs.

It is important to consider how gender conventions reform those of

genre and the intended market for sclence fiction, but It is equally

necessary to address the operabon of gender at a structural level in the

text. The binary oppositions often employed in science ficbon cinema are

frequently gendered and it is the tension between these oppositions that

prowdes much of the dramatic and ideological tension. Within the logic

of structurahsm and psychoanalysis*, gender is first and foremost a

'relation', gaimng its meaning from its relationship with other terms. The

meaning of masculimty as 'actwe and aggressive', for example, is

dependent on ÿts difference from femmimty constructed as 'passwe and

nurturing' It ts commonly held in psychoanalytically informed studies of

gender that these differences are 'pnmary' oppositions that reform a

wtde range of dÿscourses and narratwes In science fiction gender

differences often overlap with other binary distractions. Sclence and

ratÿonahty are conventionally gendered as masculine and often

juxtaposed with nature, the supernatural and the ÿrratlonal, which are

constructed as feminine. This has led some theonsts to suggest that

sctence fiction cinema can be seen partly as a response to fear of the

femimne as a source of emasculation (see, for example, Creed 1993).The

male hero figure, according to this reading, must prove his mascuhnÿty

by defeating the alien invaders or the dehumanismg force and by

rescuing the besieged heroine. In thls reading of soence fictlon all types

of difference tend to be subsumed to the preservabon of convenbona[

gender roles.

This ts a useful argument, but there are complications and ambiguibes

it does not encompass. Ahen invaders are often presented as

technologically-centred and tend to be rational to the point of excluding

all emobon. In the hkes of War of the Worlds and Independence Day the

38 3£

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

aggressors are devoid of feelings, which might be read as a critique of a

certain cold and ruthless version of macho-masculinity As MarkJancovich

suggests, 'qualities usually associated with femininity are highly valued'

(1996: 28). These films tend to valorise a more caring version of

mascubmty that might reflect a widespread re-appraisal of masculinity,

prompted partly by feminism and partly by the contradictions experienced

by men between 'macho' ideals and their own desires to be more

emotionally forthcoming. In RoboCop 0987) and Judge Dredd (ÿ995),

hard-nosed and goal-focused attributes eventually give way to a more

gentle human(e) approach. Oredd (Sylvester Sta[lone) loses confidence in

the system of Law and his belief that he Is infallible is undermined. These

films offer the pleasurable fantasy of hyper-masculinity, balanced by

taming or humanlsmg the macho-cyborg-male through a programme of re-

education or a symbolic rite of passage. This may be related to broader

social currents, or to more tmmedlate industrial purposes. Fans of the

comic-strip Dredd considered the change a betrayal of the unrelenting

'love-to-hate-him' character, brought about purely to maintain the

preferred image of a powerful star.

The female body has often provided a source of visual pleasure in

science fiction. In Forbidden Planet the scientist's daughter Altalra (Anne

Francis) is scantily clad and has one meeting with the heroic Captain

(Leslie Nielson) when swimming nude In a pool. She becomes the

Captain's prize for doing battle with the 'monster from the ld' (an extension

of the mind of her father) B-movie science fictton tends to figure a

romance somewhere Jn between raygun battles and sawng the world,

although not In all cases. Women are only rarely granted senior positions

on space missions and the hke, although Starship Troopers presents one

recent exception. Space may offer an escape from many terrestnai

hmltations, but the 'glass ceding' usually remains in place The women

space travellers of Fhght to Mars and Rocketshlp X-M (195o) exist primarily

to provide romantic interest for male characters (and viewers). Women are

often absent from the more artistically pretenbous or cultish examples of

196os and 197os science ficbon cinema such as 2ooi: A Space Odyssey,

Silent Running (1971) and Dark Star (1973) Debarring women from outer

space appears m these cases to be seen as a way of dispensing with the

more salacious (and populist) elements of the genre. Fantasy and soft-porn

entries such as Barbarella (1968) and Flesh Gordon (1972) eschew 'serious'

philosophical pondering, giving full rein to what a psychoanalytic

perspective, or a queer reading, would see as the latent phalhc and

sado-masochistic motifs found in 193os serials such as Flash Gordon. That

serious and chaste science fiction is figured as masculine, while sexuahty

- often through the diverting erotic presence of a woman - is associated

with the undemanding and the popular, speaks volumes about the gender

constructions to which sctence fiction is often made to conform.

The dominant trend Jn science ficbon ÿs to represent women as objects

of the gaze*, as helpers to and pnzes for the hero, or as 'othered' aliens.

This trend began to change with the success of the Ripley character in

Alien Barbarella valiantly does battle with the black queen, but it was not

until Allen that science fictton women really began to take situations by

the horns. The hero of Tank Girl (1995) ts never more at home than in

ripped tights and at the helm of a tank, defeating the Water and Power

Company with the help of mutant kangaroos. Linda Hamilton muscles-up

to reprise her role as Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, while Dana Scully

(Gdhan Anderson) is the scepbcal scientist juxtaposed to the intuitive and

'irrational' Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) in The X Files. These women have

toughened-up in mind and body and are able to handle guns and life-

threatening situations. Nevertheless, the role of women as nurturing

mother-figures continues to persist. They fight, but often as a result of the

instinct to protect children or their surrogates. This is true even of the

super-rational Scully who somebmes comes to the rescue of the more

child-like Mulder. Their dress, the weaponry or gadgets they use and the

fact that they continue to endure various states of desperabon also

continue to frame women as the object of the gaze, even if in a more

complex context. The very fact that we are expected to be surpnsed and

amazed at these women's powers of endurance and qwck thinking is

often intnnstc to thetr function as spectacle

Gender inequality has prowded a central theme for a small group of

more radical films. Born m Flames brings femimst politics to bear on

/.0 41

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

science fiction, to a point at which famlbar generic conventions are

abandoned Set m New York, ten years after the 'most peaceful revolution

in the world', it is the story of a democracy increasingly subject to

conservative forces. Activists seeking to bring together a range of

oppositional groups create a women's army The death of one of its

leaders leads to the formation of a cross-cLass and multi-ethnic coalition

that takes direct action, mainly by targeting media institutions and

interrupting official news broadcasts. Born m Flames offers no special

effects, is set in a recognisably contemporary New York and makes no use

of the conventional visual languages of science fiction. It uses a

documentary style for the most part, including montage sequences,

speeches to camera, vmce-overs and television news footage. The film

also departs from mainstream conventions in its focus on collective,

rather than indlwdua[, action: there is no individual hero or star. The

future figured by Born in Flames is in fact a facsimile of American society

in the early 198os. Far from a brave new world, ten years of post-

revolutionary complacency is presented as heralding a return to old

gender, class and race divisions.

Reproduction is a further theme that constantly recurs in science

fiction, from Dr Frankenstein's attempts to reproduce without the aid of a

woman to the genetically modified babies of Gattaca. This theme Is taken

up from a feminist perspective in The Handmaid's Tale (ÿ99o), set in a

world where most women have damaged reproductive organs and are

unable to have children. The rulers see this as an Old Testament-style

punishment for the decadent sins of a liberal age. In this new Christian

fundamentalist society, women's roles have reverted back to an

emphasis on being wives and mothers; the few fertile women are

designated as 'handmaids' who produce bables for nch families The film

uses a sclence fiction format to warn against the backlash against

femimsm, although the upbeat ending in which Kate (Natasha

Richardson) manages to escape to the hills wlthout surrendering her

baby to the surrogate famdy has been seen, by feminist critics, as

weakening the film's message. The Handmaid's Tale has also been

criticised for failing to take a sufficient interest in science ficbon as a

form, merely using it as a vehicle for polltical comment (see Hardy t995).

Sclence fictlon stories written by women have found ÿt harder to make it

to the screen, which mlght suggest that, for all its tough women,

contemporary science fiction cinema remains largely a genre that plays

out male fantasies of sex and power. Thÿs is, of course, debatable. It does

not follow that the gender of the author of source material necessarily

determines in aLl ways the gender Jmpbcations of what appears on

screen.

Madmen, Scepbcs and Nerds: Images of the Scientist

Benign boffins do thelr best to help humanity; crazed lunatics play

Promethean games with humanity and the fabric of the universe; and

those poor nerdy cerebral types sometlmes need to summon more

muscular heroics if they are to save the day Sclence fiction cinema

offers scienbsts in a range of guises, from good and bad to somewhere

in between, from rigorous rationalist to completeLy nutty professor. How

exactly the scientist is figured is often a good indication of the more

general approach of a film, and they tend to turn up m cycllcal

patterns.

The benign and altruistic version of the sclentist proLiferated from the

195os when some science fiction cinema, taking its lead from Destinatlon

Moon, branched away from the horror fiLm. Scientists such as Professor

Barnhardt in The Day the Earth Stood Still, Quatermass in The Quatermass

Xpenment (t955) and Mr Spock in the origina{ Star Trek utter the voice of

rabonabty. Such figures represent progress and a spirit of curiosity,

although, as we have seen, the rationabty of the scientist {s often

balanced by careful emphasis on more specifically 'human' qualities such

as indlwdualism, emotion or romantic pairing Scientists such as the

intrepid tÿme-traveller in The Time Machine are prepared to nsk ridicule

from their contemporaries m order to push forward the limits of

knowledge. In Bramstorm (1983), Michael Brace (Christopher Watken) is

a passionate man of science, not suffering from any excess of coo[

detachment. Such characters are thus cLearly distinguished from the

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

brilliant but unfeeling intelligences of overly rational scientists or aliens.

Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is in many ways a perfect Illustration, a Vulcan/

human hybrid who embodies the contradictory imperatives of strict logic

and humamty tn a manner that makes explicit a wÿder tendency in the

depiction of the benign rationahst

Another widely used strategy is to combine the rational with the

attributes of the absent-minded professor, a mix found in the

protagonist of the first Dr Who film, Dr Who and the Daleks 0965) and the wacky inventor Doc Brown in Back to the Future. A dose of homely

eccentricity makes the expert seem more vulnerably human and is a

good way, perhaps, of inoculating the use of science and technology

against the darker implications that often come when it is associated

with threatening state, corporate or military institutions. Many scientists

are far from 'macho' in the physical sense: brains tend to exceed

cyborgian-brawn. They are often figured as 'good fathers' whose

attraction to the arcane world of science may be either an extension

of, or in conflict with, their roles as caring parents or surrogates, as is the

case with Brace in Brainstorm and the good doctor in Dr Who and the

Daleks.

The benign scientist can be ted astray, however. The hazards of

tampermg wtth time or nature are mostly averted in favour of comic

adventure, as in Back to the Future or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. But good

intentions and ideabsbc visions can bring about disastrous conse-

quences. Characters whose work goes astray in this manner are apparent

in the paranoid B-movies of the ÿ95os, standing in perhaps for those

deemed to be 'misguidedLy' sympathetic to communism. Such a scientist

is the tdealistic Tom Anderson (Lee van Ctee0 in It Conquered the World

(1956), who facilitates the arrival of a monster on Earth with the mlttal

intenbon of making it a better place. Soence itself is still seen as a

necessary and progressive force here, even if one that can have

unforeseen effects. Well-mtenboned sclenbsts who bring about disaster

often start out in lofty pursuit of cures for human diseases, as we saw m

Demon Seed. The unforeseen effects have consequences for both the

characters and the generic location of the films m which they appear

4

\

FIGURE 5 Back to the Future (ÿ985)

45

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

When things start to go wrong, Demon Seed hovers on the border between

science fiction and horror A similar fate befalls Mimic (1997): a 'miracle'

cure prevents the spread of a lethaL chddhood disease but unleashes a

monstrous predator. In Deep Blue Sea (1999) the scientist's genetic

experiments on sharks are intended to harvest a cure for Alzheimer's

disease but have consequences that lead the film from aspects of science

fiction to the noisy action thriller.

The scientist can also be presented In much darker terms. The

protagomsts of earlier films often derived from the classical horror

tradition. The scientists of Fritz Lang's Metropohs and The Testament of Dr

Mabuse (ÿ933) are essentially black magicians who conjure the forces of

nature and industry to fulfil their evil retentions. These, and later

maniacal scientists, carry the gothic legacy of Dr Frankenstein and Dr

Jekyll Krank (Daniel Emdfork) in The City of Lost Children is a Frankenstein figure who has no imaginary world of his own. He abducts children and

uses baroque technologies to capture and experience their dreams,

making him an exaggerated fairy tale version of the coldly rationalist

scientist. The unnatural exploits of the 'mad scÿenbst' - whose goal is

often to produce a robot, monster or synthetic human - umtes science

fiction and horror in an unholy marriage. In Voodoo Woman 0957) the

male scientist uses white science and black voodoo to create his idea[

woman. In Mad Love (ÿ935) science becomes a fiendish tool with which

the scienbst exacts revenge for hÿs unrequited love. The untamed desire

for knowledge can lead to an acbve disregard for human hfe, as with the

scÿentEst m the t951 version of The Thing, who suggests that the

occupants of an Arcbc survey station should be prepared to die rather

than kd[ a threatening alien visitor from which humamty mÿght have much

to learn. The mad scienbst has persisted as a staple of more recent

science fiction films, including Dr Weir (Sam Neill) m Event Horizon Mad

scientists have a habit of spawning monsters, sometmmes intentionally,

as with the miniature test-tube people and the bride created in Bride of

Frankenstem 0935), sometimes umntentÿona[ly, the classic case being

the 'monster from the Id' unleashed by Morbius m Forbidden Planet The

genebc scientist and entrepreneur responsible for the manufacture of the

replicants in Blade Runner takes up the legacy of Morblus and

Frankenstein; hke them he comes to suffer at the hands of his unnatural

creation.

Male sctentlsts m films such as Blade Runner and Forbidden Planet

may be interpreted as representatives of patriarchy, the status quo or the

particular vested interests of capitalism. Traditionally the vmce of

rabonahsm and science ÿs male, but m a few contemporary science

fiction films thts voice is assigned to women, who are often presented as

combining it with a more canng and 'human' approach to science. As

elsewhere, a key charactensbc of these representations is an effort to

have tt both ways, to give at least the appearance of resolving the

contradictions. Elhe Arroway 0odie Foster) m Contact 0997) is a scientist

in search of extra-terrestrial life. Such an enterprise is considered crazy by

the scientific estabhshment, a waste of potential brilhance. Arroway

proceeds with a ngorous scÿenttfic attitude, however, as ff to make up for

the marginal nature of the object of her studies. She flatly refuses to allow

any religious dimension to enter the equabon when extra-terrestrial life is

discovered, in the process jeopardlslng her own opportunity to go on a

mission across the galaxy. When Arroway eventually completes the

journey, she Is left with no ewdence that it happened, and Is thus forced

to fail back on something closer to the kind of 'faith' she previously

disparaged. Contradictions between rebgious behef and scientific under-

standing are wished away, an action cemented in true Hollywood fashion

by the romantic coupling of Arroway and the handsome figure of a kind of

secular priest Drawing on contemporary cultural investments in mysb-

cism, as opposed to empirically-based knowledge, Arroway undergoes a

rite of passage into seeing things 'both ways'; a dual focus sometimes

offered to Dana SculLy in The X Files The misguided FrankenstemJan gemus who succumbs to the seduc-

tions of knowLedge and power remains a conspicuous figure in

contemporary science fiction. One example is Dr Angelo (Pierce Brosnan)

in The Lawnmower Man, a researcher into the potential of virtual reality.

His experiments into the expansion of mental capacities offer a potentially

transcendent breakthrough in the improvement of human hves. Two

46 47

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

factors conspire to threaten disaster, however. One is the sinister military

corporation, which wants to use his discoveries for the pursuit of power,

death and destruction rather than ennoblement. The corporation, Virtual

Space Industries, is a typical science fiction manifestation of the evil force

that subverts the scientific version of the utopian dream - one way of

absolving science and the scientist from the blame when things go wrong.

A second factor is Angelo's own arrogance and desire, his problems with

the corporation tempting him into unofficial and somewhat unethical

experiments on a dim-witted human subject.

While the Frankenstein figure suffers nobly for tampering with the laws

of nature, the computer geek of many recent science fiction films is a

nocturnal creature often lacking the moral integrity of Mary Shelley's tragic

hero The archetypal herd is found In Jurassic Purk In the form of one

Dennis Nedry (an anagram of 'nerdy'), a programmer in charge of the

computer that controls the park. His workstation is httered with coke cans,

crisp packets and candy-bar wrappers. Overweight, lazy, greedy for junk

food and money, he fulfils the stereotypical attributes of the computer

herd. Lacking both nutritional and moral fibre, he becomes the main

catalyst for the disastrous release of the dinosaurs. Like many other nerds

in popular culture, Nedry is not wantonly mahcÿous but creates mayhem

because he is self-centred and out of touch with the real-world effects of

his actions.

Why should nerds be presented in such negative terms? What threats

do they represent? One explanation is that they are striking symbols of the

potential for a fascination with technology, and technological facility, to

over-ride more 'human' interaction. Nerds have access to the mysterious

closed world of computer technology, which can have mixed implications.

They are able to navigate the technological complexities of the digital

world, where a more muscular and physical hero is unable to go. The herd

has, therefore, a certain sub-cultural and subversive power and expertise

that could potentÿaUy threaten the status quo. Contemporary science

fiction, in response, seems equivocal in its representation of those with

high levels of computer expertise. In return for one version oftechno-power

the nerd is given all the attributes of social and moral ineptitude.

There is a significant group of films in which the computer 'hacker'

becomes a glamorous sub-culturaL icon, however, as in Worgumes (1983),

Hackers (1995) and Johnny Mnemonic. The ultimate hacker, is Neo (Keanu

Reeves) in The Matrix, who learns to defy the usual rules within an

otherwise imprisoning computer-generated world. To a small band of

fellow hackers, he proves to be the sought-after figure known as 'The

One'. For us, the exploits of Neo and his female counterpart Trinity (Carrie-

Anne Moss) are the source of an abundance of fantastic action thrills. The

very term 'hacker' carries positive associations, suggesting a more

sophisticated, rebellious and less smugly conformist figure than the

indulgent nerd. The issue, then, is not just access to these domains, but

the kind of attitude that accompanies it. A negotiation of these terms Is

made in Jurassic Park. Nedry is the nerd of nerds, but the young girL, Lex,

is able to stop screaming and come to the rescue m one scene because of

her computer sklUs. Earlier, during an argument wMth her brother, she

resists the label 'nerd', insisting instead that she be called a 'hacker'.

The distinction may not be an absolute one and is another indicator of

the different aspects of such questions that are opened up for

exploration in science fiction. The presentation of the physlcaUy weak

boffin or nerd appears to have shifted to some extent in recent years.

Science fiction, along with its genre hybrids, has a long history of more

'geeky' figures, usually not the principal heroes, ranging from Brains in

Thunderbirds (1963-1967) to Q In the James Bond films and the trio who

offer expert backup to MuLder and ScuUy in The X Files Mowe and series

The traditional geek is not a figure of muscular capacity and often does

not require such prowess Neo in The Matrix offers some reconciliation of

the opposition between physical and mental powers. He Is slightly built,

which is of little relevance to skills deployed within the computer

simulation. Phystcahty - or the 'meat', as the body is often termed m

cyber-speak - [s left strapped to a chair in the 'real world' dystopta. The

fight scenes are highly styltsed, choreographed by an expert from the

martial arts cinema of Hong Kong and dependent on cinematic trickery

such as expressive editing and slow motion effects. The action heroics of

Neo are not 'real' within the fictional world; neither are those of the actor

48 49

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

Keanu Reeves in front of the camera.Yet the dominant impression offered

to the viewer is the spectacle of highly physical antics within the matrix

that sometimes leave their mark on the recumbent body in what the film

presents as 'reality'. Neo has the best of both worlds, hacker brain and

seemingly corporeal action-heroics, with an emphasis on the body as

performance. This can be understood as an implicit attempt to resolve the

differences between the two, or to construct a particular kind of

Hollywood star image: Reeves as both the vulnerable, sensitive male

and hyper-dynamic boddy presence. The martial arts context sanctions

the pleasure offered by Neo to both the heterosexual male and female

gaze.

The expert, the inventor, the scientist and the hacker/nerd are

ubiquitous figures in the cinema of science fction. They are often

responsible for all kinds of mayhem, but they can also be the brains and

the brawn behind the action, and might even be presented as humanity's

saviour.

Horror and Science Fiction

Many science fiction films draw on aspects of the horror genre and vice

versa (see, for a fuller description, Tudor 1989; Creed 1993). There is

often a conflatlon of the genres in Hollywood films of the 193os such as

Frankenstein (1-931), Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 0_932) and The Invisible Man

(1933) This has caused some confusion for cnhcs looking to make a hard

distraction between the two genres, an area in which much ink has been

spilt. Mark Jancowch (1996) addresses the overlap between genres

through the concept of hybridisation, suggesting that 195os invasion

narratives draw from the genre conventions of both horror and science

fichon. A large number of science fiction films share wÿth horror the

presence of a monster. The distraction is far from clear-cut but often hes

in the fact that the monster in the horror film has supernatural origins,

while those found m science fiction tend to come from outer space or to

be produced by actiwties such as nuclear testing or the work of the

diabohcal scientLst. Alms such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers,

Videodrome, Event Horizon and The Fly (1986) borrow more than just the

monster motif from horror, mtxmg a range of thematic conventions from

both genres. What these and other films have in common ÿs that the

invading agent (technology, ahens or super-human cyborgs) threatens

humanity and the human body at a personal level. The films hinge

around a number of anxieties, especially depersonalisation and rapid

changes in bodily form, both of which express fears about loss of self-

control and mdwiduality: themes that are prevalent in both science

fiction and horror.

The narrative of Invasion of the Body Snatchers shifts the staple horror

movie zombie from the domain of the supernatural into the world of extra-

terrestrial invasion. The inhabitants of an American town are gradually

replaced by simulacra grown from pods. They look and sound as they did

before, but lack the emotional features apparent to friends and relatives.

There are no conctusive raygun or aerial battles wlth ahen saucers;

instead, the horror of alien invasion Js located wlthin domestic space and

renders the familiar uncanny The original version can be read m terms of

the air of paranoia created by McCarthyite America m the 195os, whde the

remake evokes something of the 197os post-Watergate era. Both versions

leave the end open and the threat unchecked. The process of possession

suggested in these f[ms threatens to destabdlse familiar distractions

between self and other, human and alien. Another example of this

tendency is Quatermass and the Pit, m which people kill one another en

masse after being taken over by the memories of ancient locust-creatures

from Mars.

The very intimate and indwiduaUy targeted intrusive violations of Dawd

Cronenberg's Videodrome, The Fly and Scanners (198o) bnng the full

gamut of body-horror tropes* to science fiction. Cronenberg envisions the

impact of technology on the body m terms of evoluhon into a hybrid form.

The body itself is the site of horror and the viewer is mwted to address the

fact that human bodies are never entirely under our own control. The body,

according to certain precepts of Western 'rationahty', is meant to be

subjugated to the mind. Psychoanalytic theory is not alone in arguing that

this is an illusory, if necessary, fiction. The human body is m a constant

5O

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

state of change, at bmes undergoing rapid transformation, although this is

something we tend to ÿgnore In our dady lives. Body horror, from this

perspective, can be seen to address latent or subconscious fears of a lack

of bodily control, appending such fears to classic science fiction

narratives of invasion. The central characters in V1deodrome and The Fly

undergo radical and terrifying anatomical changes beyond their control,

threatening their identity from within. Technology is instrumental to these

bodily transformations, which might be seen as a threatening evolutionary

leap Into the 'post-human' that makes human values such as autonomy

and individuality redundant.

Science fiction approaches technology in a variety of ways. TechnoLogy

itself Is often treated as largely neutral, suggesting that it is pnmarily the

use to which it is put that renders it good or bad. the question is Left in the

domain of human actlon. Some films suggest that technology can become

a deslring entity in Its own right, moving beyond human control. Many

science fiction/horror hybrids fall into this category, including Event

Honzon, Demon Seed, and V1deodrome. The technologically embodied

monsters of these films often exhibit perverse sexual desires and are

figured m the mode of the gothlc monster. The worLd of technology is

subject to accelerated change that makes it unpredictable and difficult to

comprehend, contributing to susplclons about the effects it might have on

our lives; particularly technologies such as genetic engineenng that

impact directly on the body. Science ficbon/horror hybrids draw strongly

on these anxleties, potentially enabhngthem to create the kind of visceral

fear that defines the horror film.

Event Honzon offers a good illustration of this genenc mlxture. It

deploys spectacular images of space and leans on pseudo-sclenttfic

theory; these are blended with the shock tactics of the horror film through

bloody images of torture, a tens]on-heJghtemng music track and sudden

nolses calculated to startle the wewer. The film tacltly evokes the work of

cult 'cosmic horror' writer H.P. Lovecraft (189o-1937), whose stories were

published in science fiction/fantasy magazines such as Amazing Stones

(1926-1995, 1997 to present) and Welrd Tales. In the depths of space -

where we all know no one can hear you scream and which prowdes,

potenbaUy, an allegory for the deepest levels of the mind -there lurk, in

Lovecraftean terminology, the 'Old Ones', who represent the forces of

chaos and destruction. The new technology carried on the Event Horizon

spacecraft creates a gateway m the fabnc of space and time. On returning

through this gateway the Event Horizon becomes suffused with demomc

forces, which begin to affect the investigating crew, damning them to

murder and violent seif-mutilabon (Krzywinska 2000). The crime that

bnngs forth these unnameable forces is the transgression of the space-

time continuum The order of the universe is disrupted; chaos and

destrucbon ensue. The film brings to gory fruition the warning provided by

Mary Shelley's novel Frunkenstem 0818) that to break the rules of nature

Is to bnng about what the Greeks called nemesis, which involves, at least,

the death of the transgressor. Event Horizon ÿs not just an intimate

Oedipa[ battle between creator and creature; the sclenbst has opened the

doors to an apocalyptic force that does not simply wipe out individuals m

a split second of armageddon, but drives them fury-mad before pulling

their bodies apart limb from hmb.

Science ficbon/horror hybrids such as Event Honzon bring the

mlilenmal fear of Judgement Day into the hi-tech present, a quabty also

found to some extent m the science fiction/dÿsaster blends that

characterise Deep Impact and Armageddon. Demon Seed and Later genre

hybrids such as The X Files and Buffy The Vampire Sluyer 0997-present)

also resurrect medÿevat ideas, such as demonoLogy and the supernatural

often through the rendenng of technology as personified, conscious and

demonic Re-wrapped in hl-tech chrome and sJbcone, age-old chthomc

and gothic terrors return to haunt computer games, the mternet and outer

space, tmagmabons of the present or the future are sometimes shaped in

the mould of supernatural terrors from the past. This provides an

opportunity to anthropomorphise technology, a quality that enables It to

fit neatly into the character-centred narrative logic dominant in the

commercial cinema. It also gwes reign to manifestations of special

effects, another key ingredient of recent science fiction. This tendency

also draws explicitly on psychoanalybc ideas of repression and the

irrational quality of the unconscious, ideas that have been taken up by

52 53

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

horror and science fiction themselves as well as by numerous academic

commentators.

Science Ficbon and the Postmodern

Lines are blurred. Important distmcbons become unc[ear. Science fiction

sometimes presents a world that threatens to undermine some of the

major categories into which we orgamse our lives. The cyborg ÿs neither

human nor machine, but something in between. The difference ÿs not

aLways easy to tell Gender boundaries can also be destabi[ised in these

cases, especially when humanity is shown to be subject to construction

and reconstrucbon. 'ReaLity' is sometimes thrown into question,

especlai[y in science fiction cinema that deals with the subject of virtual

reality. Virtual realities are computer-generated worlds that, in science

fiction at least, can be inhabited as if they were real. They are often

presented as seductive fantasies that can come to seem more real than

reality itself, as in The Matrix The world presented by this kind of science

fiction has much in common with what has been described as a

'postmodern' condition.

The concept of the postmodem is a tricky and often confusing one,

largely because so many different versions of the postmodern have been

described m dlscip[ines ranging from art and phdosophy to science and

economics. We will not attempt here to glve anything like a definitive

verslon of the postmodem, merely to indicate some of the ways it has

been used in reference to sclence fiction films. One place to start is with

the example of a film that provided a key point of reference m the

mushrooming of studies of the postmodern that occurred m the 198os:

Blade Runner, a film that has influenced many subsequent science

ficbons.

How, then, is 8tade Runner seen as an exemplar of the postmodem? We

can begin by considering a number of boundaries the film appears to blur or

confuse, a commonly cited charactenstic of the postmodern. The replicants,

described paradoxically as 'more human than human', threaten to

undermine our fundamental distinction between human and machine.

Blade Runner also mixes up any clear sense of time. The film is clearly

meant to be set in the future. But it also uses conventions normally

associated with the past; the look and feel of 194os film noÿr is an important

ingredient, for example. The future is not imagined as bright, gleaming and

progressive, but as something that has ingrown or turned back on itself.

This, again, is the kind of thing saÿd to characterise the postmodem: a loss

of clear historical perspective, a juxtaposition of detad from different

periods (see Jameson 1991). The two Terminator films might also be cited as

examples of temporal confusion, based as they are on paradoxes in which

the relationship between present, past and future becomes unstable; or the

Star Wars films, with their sense of a futuristic world that is actually set in

the past. More generally, the postmodern is often understood in terms of a

loss of faith In progress, science or rationality (see Lyotard 1984), a recurring

feature of dystopian science fiction.

These arguments might also be applied to the many contemporary

sclence fiction films that draw on earlier products of the genre m thelr

style or content. A common term m the vocabulary of postmodemism is

pastiche*, a concept that seems relevant to recent films that recycle

science ficbon films and television shows from the t95os or ÿ96os. An

example might be Lostm Space, which merely dresses up the old formula

in a new technological garb. Mars Attacks! might appear to be another

candidate for this status, although it has a more critical edge Jn its

relationshlp to the 195os films to which it plays homage, a quabty

Jameson takes as a crucial dlstinction. Postmodern pastiche is

characterised as fiat and uncritlca[, Lacking the polibcal bite of parody

or sabre (see Jameson 1985).The culture of the postmodern is seen as one

in which there are few, if any, new ideas, merely an endless recycbng of

the past - something of which contemporary Hollywood science fictlon is

often accused.

Space, as well as time, is often said to have been transformed in the

postmodern. Classlc science ficbon, for Viwan Sobchack (1993), presents

space as something to be penetrated or explored. Science fiction that

exhiblts features of the postmodern is saMd to present space as 'flattened',

or reduced to a jamboree ofwsual styles. Much of the fascination of Blade

5ÿ 55

SHORT CUTS SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

Runner has been attributed to its surface texture, the immense volume of

detail that fills the frame. In contrast, 198os films such as Tron (1_982) and

The Last Starfighter (1984) reduce much of their space to the dimensions

of the computer screen. The geography of Blade Runner also appears to

blur distinctions. It ÿs set in Los Angeles, but a version of the city that is

peopled with a muLti-national and multi-ethnic 'mish-rnash' of peoples

and tansuages, precisely the kind of qualities attributed to a postrnodern

diasporic geography of the real world (Bruno 199o; Soja 1989).

Architecture is a field m which some conceptions of the postmodern

were first described, postrnodern architecture being defined as a style that

incorporates references to all sorts of different periods or designs. Blade

Runner, again, has been seen as an example of this approach, mixing the

hi-tech, the decrepit and elements taken from an array of ancient and

modern cultures (see Bruno 199o).

The disorientation created by the postmodern experience is described

by Jameson in terms of a kind of schizophrema* that can also be read into

some works of science fiction. The schizophrenic lives m a 'perpetual

present', rather than wÿth any clear relationship to the past or future. This

is characterised as a world of heightened intensity, but one in which a

dear sense of reality is lost. For some, this might be a description of much

contemporary science fiction: a world of intense and Luminous wsions - of

new worlds, new technologies or the transformation sequences of

Terminator 2 - that shine brightly from the screen with an intensity that

can unsettle our sense of the boundaries of reality.

The postmodern remains a contentious subject. Many of the claims

made in its name are open to question. It is far from clear that the epochal

changes described in some accounts have much basis in reality. They

sometimes appear in a pseudo-prophetic and cautionary form that has

been termed ficto-criticism. This ÿs another point of boundary confusion,

perhaps one at which social theory can sbp into a mode closer to that of

science fiction: the strongest example is provided by some of the wilder

speculations of the French theorist Jean Baudriliard. This might be why

science fiction films have proved such fertile territory for analysts of the

postrnodern. The theory appears to have some grasp on the world of

contemporary science fiction, whatever its status in the world beyond the

screen.

Even within science ficbon, it is easy to overstate the extent to which

boundaries such as those between reality and fantasy are really blurred.

Rlms about virtual reality may play with our sense of which is which, but

such doubts are usually resolved quite clearly in favour of one level that Is

established as the unquestionably real. Mainstream films in particular are

constrained by a comnmerclaL demand for a certain [eve[ of narrative clarity,

particularly in such fundamentals, that bruits how far they can go in this

respect. The Matrix, for example, leaves us in no doubt where reaLity Lies,

for all the seductive qualities of its presentabon of the computer-

generated fake. Greater leeway for sustained confusion Ms permitted in

qulrkier and more economically marginal and cultish films such as David

Cronenberg's Videodrome or eXistenZ. The same could be said of the

suggestion that science fiction cinema exhibits a postmodern erosion of

distincbons between the human and the non-human. This is a feature of

recent science fiction, but the bulk of mainstream films devote much of

their energy to re-establishing a clear-cut sense of the human. Creations

such as the cyborg carry the potential to undermine convenbonal gender

roles but are used more often to assert fairly rÿgÿd distinctions. Gaps and

openings are created in many of the films considered in the first part of

thÿs book, but not to the sweeping extent sometimes implied in the name

of the postmodern.

56 57

A WaLlflower Paperback

F=rst published m Great Britain m 2000 by Wa{[fLower PubLtshmg L=mÿted 16 Chalk Farm Road Camden Lock London NW1 8AG wwwwat[f[owerpress co uk

Copyright Geoff KJng & Tanya Krzywmska 2000

The moral right of Geoff King & Tanya Kr-zywmska to be identified as the authors of this work

has been asserted m accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act of 1988

At[ rights reserved No part of this pubt=catmn may be reproduced stored m a retrieval

system, or transported in any form or by any means, e[ectromc mechanical., photocopying.

recording or otherwise wLthout the prier permission of both the copyright owner and the

above pubtÿsher of this book

A[l. stdls courtesy of BFI Fÿl.ms StL[Ls, Pesters and Designs

Used by perrnJssmn

A catalogue record for thÿs book ÿs available from the British Library

ISBN 1 903364 03 5

Book Design by Rob Bowden Design

Typeset by LaserScnpt Ltd, Mitcham, Surrey

Pnnted In Great Britain by

Antony Rowe Ltd Chlppenham, Wittshlre

SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

FROM OUTERSPACE TO CYBERSPACE

GEOFF KING & TANYA KRZYWINSKA

® WALLFLOWER

LONDON