Analysis film .

GENRE:

Introduction

The overall premise of understanding the Genre of a film is to assert exactly in which realm a movie or a media form belongs and how an audience may perceive it. The word Genre is derived from the French Language which translates into ‘Class’ or ‘Kind’. The purpose and nature of this sort of categorization of literature and media forms revolves around the aspect to help provide an understanding of the recurring themes and distinctive topics addressed within a certain film or literature. This allows the audience as well as the narrator or the filmmaker to decide exactly how and what to provide to its audience which will not only be accepted but would also make sense. For example, regarding a genre such as that of Science Fiction it would make sense to introduce outwardly paradigms and farfetched scenarios not looking to depict the exact reality, whereas, movies of a romantic genre would provide the exact opposite or something closest to human experience as possible to gauge interest.

In order to understand the theory of Genre itself and to suggest whether movies like Blade Runner and Alien Franchise remain within the vicinity of the Sci-Fi genre I will be taking movies from a specific director such as Ridley Scott; as his work has been mostly regarded as classic science fiction. For example, the movies ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Alien’ franchise, where the main characters constantly deal with Earth and other life forms into the future, along with the elements of ominous creatures and life forms. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to determine whether films like Blade Runner and Alien specifically, represent themes of technology and creations of man itself which has not only altered life for the humans in a time within the future but also affected them adversely.

Genre

Overall, the theory of Genre is derived from the need to categorize certain media forms and literature into boxes that are all similar to one another. According to Robert Allen 'for most of its 2,000 years, genre study has been primarily nominological and typological in function. That is to say, it has taken as its principal task the division of the world of literature into types and the naming of those types - much as the botanist divides the realm of flora into varieties of plants' (Allen 1989, 44). However, with increasing technology and the additions of topics within literature and media there are genres predicted to not even have been identified let alone categorized at all.

Considering new additions to Genres, science fiction is defined as the literature of ideas and philosophies which answers questions such as ‘what if’ or ‘what will happen....’ The genre mainly focuses on the change that human life will go through by the use of advanced futuristic technologies, innovation and societal shifts. The idea that this paper will be asserting is why a handful of them usually focus on the dystopian society and explores the already existing, unexplored parts of the universe (Kuggun). The genre closely is linked to the laws of science and should not be completely unbelievable since that would venture on to the genre of fantasy. Thus, the literature should be believable and somewhat real. The science fiction films usually center around, scientific, imaginative and possible a series of films- strip like narratives. The expert film production and special effects aid the filmmakers into making movies that portray advanced technologies and their effect on humans of the given time period. They often portray sinister knowledge that the human should not be aware of which can possibly harm them if they come into contact with its existence; such as the story an idea of the Alien franchise. These films are complete with distant planets in space and humans looking to reside on other planets other than the Earth in order to find and live life, super heroes, unexplainable ominous forces, dark villains, inhumane or ominous creatures or a futuristic Earth that needs to be salvages such as in the case of Blade Runner.

Especially considering the Alien franchise, strange organisms or mutant monsters, created in space or earth by humans themselves are villains seen to be unleashed on the human race; a common theme that comes to one’s mind when thinking about science fiction movies as well. Science fiction possesses a prophetic nature which is that it predicts the future events that may take place by seeing the everyday advancement of technology today. Usually, the films express the anxiety present within the contemporary society regarding the impact of technology. They may provide an overall dark and grim outlook of the future society we may be subjected to live in due to after effects of Armageddon like war or events that may take place. The dystopian society- in the cases of Alien and Blade Runner; is a common theme that is chosen for such movies (Dirks)

Paradigms

When looking at the narratives for the science fiction movies, it is important to recognize the different paradigms that may be chosen for the films. There are commonly four different paradigms that are chosen before a science fiction film can be shot, which largely determines whether it would be successful or not.

Firstly, there is Paradigm Replication. These films replicate already existing plot structures, techniques and technology and use them to create films that the audience has already accepted before. These movies take minimal risk and do not challenge the thinking of the audience. Creating this kind of paradigm is not only one of the most popular ways of implementing Sci-fi movies but allow most mainstream movies to fall into this category such as, The Matrix trilogy, Batman and Spiderman Movies. Secondly, Paradigm Redefinition allows films to take minor risk when it comes to the narrative of the work; however, they change the film within the genre. For example, a generic super hero movie with a twist- exploring the main character emotionally, which changes the way the audience, views the superhero. Lastly, Paradigm Advancement and increased paradigm advancement, takes the most risk when it comes to filmmaking. These films are usually way ahead of their time of release and challenge the way technology is incorporated into the story telling. These two paradigms are concerned with the making of science fiction films. They alienate the mainstream population liking of their time such as, Blade Runner, Avatar and the Alien Franchise. (Edictive).

All science fiction films have common artistic visuals, which are also known as the ‘aesthetic’ of the film. Depending on the theme of the film, there are three different techniques used to express the feeling of the characters and the narrative. Grounded science fiction uses natural lighting, focusing on mainly earth tones such as dull tones of brown, orange and yellow lighting to give a warm sunlit effect. Paranoia science fiction thrillers, these films focus on the characters fretful state and anxiety about their past and present. Therefore, dark tones of greys, black and faded earth tones are used to depict the scenes. Lastly, neo noir science fiction, focus on strong back lights, strobe lights, search lights, smoke and heavy contrast, which is the case in Blade Runner. (Rowling)

Themes

By looking at the themes, narrative and aesthetic characteristics above, it can be determined that the movies from the ‘Alien’ Franchise are classic science fiction movies. The plot of the movie centers around a group of scientists and mentally advanced individuals looking to travel to another planet, other than Earth in order to find the purpose of life and regenerate or populate life on a different planet where life forms may be found or humans able to survive. As the movies proceed usually the ship or the group of people encounter ominous and a series of unfortunate situations that force them to land upon an island or a planet which is infested with creatures who are bent upon eradicating the human race. The Alien franchise adequately fits a Paranoia Science fiction thriller and allows the audience to perceive dangers that may be faced far into the future as well as life forms that may exist within other worlds that have not been discovered yet.

The movies are considered to be highly quintessential of the Science Fiction genre in the ways that not only is it way ahead of its time and uses the special features of fictional themes of that of paranoia through the usage of dark tones of gray and black. Much of the Alien franchise movies provide a forest like space which is mostly inhabited with nature and damp or tropical climate. It further sees to incorporate the theme of introduction of unique and violent species that are looking to threaten and eradicate the human race if not stopped, which gained popularity from a particular group of people since the 70’s. The Alien reboots as well as prequels such as Prometheus (2012) follow similar patterns and themes in order to help the audience explain and gauge exactly where the franchise stands in the Sci-Fi genre appropriately.

Blade runner, another well known Sci-Fi movie of the 1980s incorporates the aesthetic prevailing in most of 80s science fiction movies- grim, junk, post-apocalyptic havoc. Misery and lawlessness is one of the main themes surrounding this film. The movie is set in the futuristic Los Angeles, where the threat of bioengineered beings “replicants” persists and it is up to the police officer Deckard to kill them or defeat them. As it can be seen, that the threat of ‘robots’ taking over the planet in the future and replacing the human race was one of the topics that the people at the time were anxious about and as post 80s technology was developing every day more and more science fiction genre based films made sense to address such a topic.

Both of the two films outlines above, support the common characteristics and definitions of what a science fiction movie should contain given the themes and the paradigms that they typically follow. Therefore, there is no doubt that they are fan favorites of those who closely follow the science fiction genre. The filmmakers decided to adopt the advanced paradigm and challenged the way the audience perceived movies at the time, they were both set in the distant future at the time of their release.

In conclusion, it should be considered the importance and requirement for both the audience and the filmmakers to resort to having a certain genre and work alongside it in order to produce a film with certain themes and paradigms, as well as it is no doubt that movies like Blade Runner and Alien are excellent examples of their time which represent not only a very well thought out plot but from the perspective of a genre relating to Sci-Fi the films are highly creative and appropriately lauded as well as demanded from audiences again and again despite the age or the generation of that audience; because the concepts and realities faced and addressed in those films not only have been accepted and improved equally with time and technology but have remained relevant and most entertaining as possible.

Bibliography

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