The State of Sci Fi... (1 Viewer)

[Jack Briggs]

Oh, but Blade Runner is one of my all-time faves, and I would easily put it in a list of the top five SF films ever made. It's just that it could have been even better had Ridley Scott had asked himself, "Now, could this all really come to pass by 2019?"

He should have set it in 2219. But, then there are all those 20th-century televisions in it. That sort of stuff. )

Yet the film has enough atmosphere to enshroud an entire planet.

(He did the same thing with Alien. You mean to tell me that in a distant future when there's interstellar travel that we'll still be using computers with 1970s-style keyboards? That cathode-ray screens will display 20th-century computer languages? That the film is strong enough to overcome those basic flaws is testimony to Scott's prowess.)

 

[Bill Buklis]

He did the same thing with Alien. You mean to tell me that in a distant future when there's interstellar travel that we'll still be using computers with 1970s-style keyboards? That cathode-ray screens will display 20th-century computer languages?

Unfortunately those are more a result of our current limited technology and filmmaking abilities. Part of it is also that it's hard to predict what little details like this will like in the future. In several of Robert Heinlein's books (one of the best SF authors by the way), he mentions use of an advanced slide rule in the future. It may be advanced, but it's still a slide rule. How was he to know they would soon invent the simple calculator and slide rules would be retired forever. Trivial details like this plague every SF story and lock it in at the time period it was made. However, usually this doesn't detract from the overall story or even the concept of what the future will look like. These are trivial details.

Actually I disagree that SF is in a sorry state. I think perhaps it's better now than it has ever been. Sure there's lots of junk out there. But, I think there is less junk than there was in the 60's. There are very, very few gems among the 'B' movies. Forbidden Planet is one, yes. But, the number you can name is a small handful.

I'd say that today's junk often outweighs yesterday's junk. On the other hand, though, junk is still junk. But, we're starting to see a few more gems. Like any genre, the best of the best are too far and few between.

Take a look back through the posts. Most of the great SF movies listed are fairly recent. 2001 and Forbidden Planet are only a couple exceptions. From more recent times you have Contact, Dark City, The Matrix, and Babylon 5, of course, even though it's not a movie.

For television, B5 has to the best true SF series ever made. The only one I like better perhaps is Doctor Who, but this is all over the place in regards to "true SF".

 

[RobertR]

Unfortunately those are more a result of our current limited technology and filmmaking abilities

I disagree with this. The ultra-futuristic looking displays in 2001 STILL look that way because Kubrick worked VERY hard to put forth the artistic and intellectual effort to MAKE them look that way. Other filmmakers such as Scott, regardless of their merits (and they do have quite a few) were content with using "off the shelf", mundane technology to achieve the look. NOTHING that was available to Kubrick was unavailable to them. It was simple laziness on their part. They did JUST enough to make such effects "passable". Kubrick went WAY beyond passable.

 

[Dave Barth]

I won't speak to Alien, but things in Blade Runner were designed to feel dated to some degree....the whole retrofitting motif, you know?

 

[Brad_W]

how do I turn off this double post feature?

 

[Brad_W]

Regarding 2001 and Alien, I think it is semi-unfair to compare the two. While yes, they are both Science Fiction films, 2001 is a more "nasa" (and I mean this generically, not literally) type film because Kubrick used a more realistic space engineering and crafting approach while Alien was more of a fantasy/horror type of science fiction in which, in my opinion, "anything goes." What I mean is, Scott used a more "out-of-this-world" approach to his film with regards to look and feel. Kubrick used a more "let's expand on what we have" visuality. They are two different films, yet the same. Okay... this is going nowhere, fast.

I don't know what I'm talking about. Never mind. Disregard post due to my lack of... everything.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Perhaps this is better suited for the computer forum, but regarding the question of CRT / keyboard technology in Alien...
One should consider the purpose of the vessel. The Nostromo is an industrial freighter / refinery. A command line interface is practical and efficient for a specialized function when operated by a trained individual. Industrial software ( by its very nature ) tends to deal in specialized functions and arcane terminology. For me, the operations of the Nostromo enhanced the reality of the Alien universe, and added to the film.
Besides their practicality, the computer and navigation operations depicted in the film fit the nuts and bolts aesthetic of the film, in terms of the industrial design of the film. It makes perfect sense to use a dated, proven, and reliable technology for a specialized industrial function. While other interfaces could have been used, a snazzy 'Buck Roger's' type of display interface would have clashed with the harsh environment depicted aboard the Nostromo.
For me, the computer interface on the Nostromo did not detract from or date the film, quite the opposite actually.
- Walter

 

[Bill Buklis]

Perhaps I should clarify my point about technology. Yes, if a movie is really well done and the director has enough vision, like Kubrick, then the film will still feel modern even today. Most of the time, however, budgets are limited (or at least concentrated on other areas) and the director is just trying to get the story told. In any case, don't forget there are still many things in 2001 that do date the film. For example the references to Howard Johnson and Pan Am.

But, to be honest with you, I wouldn't be surprised if we're still using keyboards or something similar for quite some time to come - especially in places that aren't of the true cutting edge.

 

[Jack Briggs]

But the Pan-Am thing is simply something that could not have been foreseen.

Reference back to RobertR's post--it couldn't have been better put.

As for the faux-retro look of Alien, Walter, I might counter with this: By the time the events in that film take place, what would be "retro" to Ripley and crew would be fabulously futuristic to us. I simply believe that Ridley Scott could have been a bit more imaginative. And he could have done the same for his far better Blade Runner. That film portrays an intoxicatingly well-realized nightmare of a future--but one that could never come to pass by 2019. If, instead, the story had been set still further in the future, then Scott would have to compensate a lot. And he should therefore have been a bit more imaginative on that score.

One of the best representations I've seen of a possible near future was shown in, of all things, a television commercial that AT&T was running about four years ago. It was set in a future of what looked like about ten or twenty years from now. In the advert, families were shown communicating via wall-hanging, flat- and widescreen "picture phones." One scene showed family members communicating via long distance, and when concluding the call, they would touch the video screens, to show affection for their relatives.

Now, that's imagination--in the way a Robert A. Heinlein would do it (he was especially noted for his well-thought-out, futuristic social structures, down to the daily rituals of the time he was writing about).

Why can't some of those A-list directors working with their big-studio budgets come up with something half as imaginative as that damn AT&T television commercial?

I suggest it's laziness. These filmmakers are doing little more than cashing in on a perceived craze.

 

[Brad_W]

I mentioned this in my Imposter Thread, but it may be answered more quickly here. At the very end of the Blade Runner credits, the producers or whomever, thanked William S. Burroughs and some other guy for the use of the title: Blade Runner. Anyone know why?

 

[Steve Enemark]

Probably because Blade Runner was based on a Philip K. Dick story called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and the title came from a novel called "Blade Runner" by another author whose name escapes me, with no connection to the movie other than the borrowed title.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Basically the title Blade Runner was inspired by the book Blade Runner, A Movie authored by William S. Burroughs. ( Despite that title, the book is not about Scott's film. ) Burroughs himself took the phrase from a story by Alan E. Nourse. You can read about it here
- Walter.

 

[Brad_W]

Thank you Walter for the link. All is explained.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Jack, I'll counter your counter with this...

As long as a technology is useful it will continue to be employed until something better ( either in terms of economics and function, or a combination of these factors ) comes along. We have been using paper for hundreds of years and are likely to use it for some time to come. Despite all of our progress in information technology, paper is still a vital part of most office environments.

And while I understand the argument of how advanced even dated technology of the future will appear from our cultural perspective, I honestly don't see the CRT/keyboard paradigm being abandoned in any reasonable time frame. I suspect that it will be with us for a long time, just like paper.

( I guess I'm more of a pragmatist vs. an optimist when it comes to anticipating technological advances. )

- Walter.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Good points, Walter--especially in regard to the use of paper. Still, though, interstellar travel is at minimum hundreds of years in the future. I don't see CRTs being around that long. But I bet Ridley Scott didn't really think about the vast complexities of interstellar flight--which means, if he had, he would have understood that we're talking about the far distant future. Instead, he used an interstellar future as a backdrop to his It! The Terror From Beyond Space-derived story. And probably thought it's coming to pass, oh, sometime in the next (i.e., twenty-first) century. (Most persons do not grasp the near-unimaginable distances involved in interstellar travel.)

 

[RobertR]

Most persons do not grasp the near-unimaginable distances involved in interstellar travel.)

You got that right, Jack! One of my pet peeves is the seemingly constant referral to aliens coming from "millions of light years away" or "from another galaxy", instead of a much more rational distance such as a few dozen light years, which they don't use because a few dozen doesn't sound like much. This is an indication that people who say such things are clueness about the distances involved.

I once made a calculation based on the earth being the size of a pinhead. Contemplate the scale of human affairs at that size for a moment. THEN contemplate an earth sized planet orbiting Alpha Centauri (the CLOSEST star to our own) that would be another pinhead THREE THOUSAND MILES AWAY on that scale.

Of course, I can hear the typical Hollywood mogul responding with "stop with the fuckin' science already! Give me something that sounds BIG!".

 

[Walter Kittel]

Jack,
Excellent point regarding the fact that interstellar travel is involved. I neglected to factor that into my consideration of the world view posited by Alien. I absolutely agree that this is unlikely to take place in the forseeable future, which of course would make the technology on display in the film even more dated. ( I retract my position. )
The only mechanisms that I can ( off the top of my head ) imagine making interstellar travel feasible in any near future are (1) Alien technology - which seems extremely unlikely or (2) A 21st / 22nd? century equivalent of Einstein who creates a new paradigm in physics that opens up avenues of understanding the universe which were previously unfathomable.
- Walter.

 

[Jack Briggs]

There you go. If some sort of wild-card breakthrough occurs in physics later this century, then who knows?

But this brings us back to a serious point regarding achieving excellence in SF cinema: Good science is no more expensive to portray than bad science. All a filmmaker would have to do is hire an undergraduate physics major as an intern to keep him or her on track.

As Robert R says, however, the driving mentality at work in Hollywood is given to the big opening weekend and producing films that come off more as sheer sensation--celluloid roller coaster rides--than as thoughtful, speculative fiction. In other words, "something BIG," to quote Robert.

 

[Phil Florian]

One other thing I notice about SF films, in particular the discussion we are having here, is it's utter lack of a hopeful future. Many of the visionaries of old-school SF (Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, etc.) didn't always depict the future as this potentially horrible place. Sure, there was "adventure" and all sorts of fun stuff going on, but it was in the context of environment. Exceptions in film would be Contact which puts a great positive spin on first contact...and...what others? It seems any time I think of SF, it is usually the horror, the horror! Alien , Bladerunner (impersonal dystopia, dismal and icky), A Clockwork Orange (social SF...which needs no description), Gattaca (fear of the overestimation of DNA's ability to determine a person's life after birth) and so on. It seems like SF movies are totally influenced by the "Cyberpunk" sub-genre that spun off of SF oh so many years ago where dystopia overtook utopia. The mind-blowing visions of Niven and his ring or Heinlein and his rockets have given way to paranoia and xenophobia in film.
Phil

 

[RobertR]

To be very honest, Phil, the overwhelmingly dystopian slant of SF films in the early to mid 70s (Silent Running, Rollerball, Logan's Run, Soylent Green, Omega Man, etc.) is one of the reasons why Star Wars (yes, I know it's not really SF, but it has many of the trappings) was greeted with such joy, such pleasure, such relief. Here we had a depiction of a "future" (even though it was supposed to have happened a long time ago) that was FUN and ADVENTUROUS. Yes, there were villains, but there was a liberating sense of an uncontrolled individualism in characters like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. Tattooine felt like the Wild Wild West. Ironically, Lucas had earlier made a "pure" SF film that depicted an utterly grim, joyless future in THX1138.

Of classic SF films, only 2001 and Forbidden Planet stand out in my mind as escaping this "dystopian" aspect (I'm omitting the B grade stuff).