The Sci-Fi Movie Stigma

An anonymous reader writes "MSN has up an article that explores why Sci-Fi is associated with cheesy Space-Operas and children's movies, and cerebral Sci-Fi films don't make it unless they are adulterated into 'Action' flicks. The piece covers upcoming projects like 'The Last Mizmey' and 'Next', and points the finger at the ultimate culprit: George Lucas. 'When Lucas made Star Wars in 1977, he was paying tribute to a subgenre of science fiction that he loved dearly as a boy: the space opera. But although the breathless serial adventures of Flash Gordon and his ilk had their pleasures, they were often treated with tolerance, at best, by more serious science-fiction writers and readers. Nevertheless, the success of Star Wars changed the movie industry's perception of science fiction forever. As much as we love Star Wars for what it is, it nearly killed Hollywood's willingness to fund science-fiction movies that actually said something about the human condition.'"

Comments

'Twas always this way

[Mikkeles]

'points the finger at the ultimate culprit: George Lucas... Star Wars ... '

It was always this way even before Lucas, with the possible exceptions of 'Things to Come' and '2001 A Space Odyssey'.

Re:'Twas always this way

[georgewad]

How about 'Forbidden Planet', 'The Day The Earth Stood Still', 'Silent Running', 'Soylent Green', 'Dark Star', 'Logan's Run'...
Even 'Deathrace 2000', 'Running Man' and 'Robocop' had socio-politcal statements to make.

Re:'Twas always this way

[erroneus]

Even Star Wars was hard get get moving though. I don't think Star Wars itself was necessarily the reason for this. Lucas had to make all sorts of concessions to make the movie happen and it just happens that one of the concessions made him billions of dollars and very powerful.

The industry just seems unwilling to depart from established formulas. The result is that everything they do frequently is a beat-down version of something else done before. It's ironic that the industry behaves this way when the rare departure often results in movies that are ridiculously popular... example, Napoleon Dynamite. (Let's face it-- "quirky" would be an understatement to describe the feeling of this movie.) Another example might be clerks... hrm... weren't both of those independant films? I know Clerks was. Perhaps what this shows is that the movie machine is uncreative and cares nothing about the audience save that they surrender their dollars.

Re:'Twas always this way

[Seumas]

Go to a Star Wars, Star Trek or comic book convention.

If one can't figure out why the sci-fi genre isn't taken seriously by the time one gets back home, they'll never get it.

Re:'Twas always this way

[georgewad]

Man! I should hand in my geek card.
Bladerunner is one of those very rare movies that deviates greatly from a great book and still kicks ass.
Can't believe I forgot to list it.

Re:'Twas always this way

[mackil]

Soylent Green wasn't "about" people, it IS people!

Re:'Twas always this way

[nomadic]

If one can't figure out why the sci-fi genre isn't taken seriously by the time one gets back home, they'll never get it.

Next time say that in Klingon, it gets the point home more forcefully.

Re:'Twas always this way

[mrbooze]

More importantly, why is it George Lucas's fault that audiences don't go to cerebral sci-fi films? It's not like they haven't made any over the years since then (Solaris, etc), they just usually don't get many people into the theaters.

Frankly, audiences don't clamor for cerebral films of any genre. The Fault, Dear Brutus, lies not in our Star Wars, but in ourselves.

Re:'Twas always this way

[vague disclaimer]

I haven't seen "I, Robot", but if it's even a little bit like the book...

Don't go there....just don't go there.

Re:'Twas always this way

[theStorminMormon]

How about you RTFA?

After the serials of the '40s and the atomic monster movies of the '50s, science-fiction cinema seemed to grow up right alongside the literature itself in the '60s, culminating in the ultimate marriage of the two: "2001: A Space Odyssey." Director Stanley Kubrick went right to the source for his visionary classic, enlisting Arthur C. Clarke to write the screenplay with him and presenting perhaps the most serious, adult treatment of science-fiction themes to that date. Other literary adaptations followed. Kubrick did it again in 1971 with "A Clockwork Orange," while "Logan's Run," the remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," "Soylent Green" and the cult favorite, "A Boy and His Dog," all brought real science-fiction novels or novellas to the screen with varying degrees of success. Even nonliterary offerings such as "Silent Running" and Lucas' own "THX 1138" made sobering statements. But "Star Wars" effectively ended all that, substituting space battles, nonstop special effects and simple good-versus-evil archetypes for the more complex shadings and themes that marked science fiction to that point.

Seriously - this would be an interesting article to discuss if people actually read the article instead of treating this as another opportunity to publicly flaunt their indie cred. "Wath me list of sci-fi movies that show I'm so hardcore sci fi."

There goes any hope for an interesting discussion... /me cranks up "indier than thou"

Re:'Twas always this way

[DeadChobi]

What a lot of people don't realise about Starship Troopers(movie) was that it was actually written to satirize the book and the whole idea that the ideal society is one in which class stratification is enforced through military service. The book was about Heinlein's ideal society, while the movie was about tearing it apart by pointing out everything that could go wrong with his society. It seems like such an "off" movie precisely because it's supposed to give you that feeling that something is wrong with their way of life.

Re:'Twas always this way

[Seumas]

Here is what I, Robot was like:

Robot (does something or whatever).
Will Smith: Dayamn! You did NOT just do that! Nuh-uh! You be trippin'!

And no, I'm not kidding. That is exactly what the movie was like.

Re:'Twas always this way

[rhaig]

If only the movie had accurately described the Heinlein's ideal society before it began satirizing it.

The movie was entertaining, the book, which was a completely different story, was excellent.

Re:'Twas always this way

[geek2k5]

I'm not sure that Starship Troopers would qualify as Heinlein's 'ideal' society. It was more of a controversial political statement than anything.

It may have also been his way of getting out of a contract for writing so called 'juveniles' since it was the last he wrote for that genre. (I seem to recall reading somewhere that he intentionally wrote a book that was good fiction and technically fit the genre, but was too controversial for them to publish.)

Now when you get down to it, the current administration's off and on proposal for mandatory 'civil service', which can include military service, is a trend toward what Heinlein brought up in Starship Troopers.

As a long time Heinlein fan, I watched the movie and listened to the commentary, wondering if the director did much more than skim the book. I also had my doubts that he had read very much Heinlein, especially the stuff after 1959, when Starship Troopers was published.

As with many Hollywood productions of SF classics, I would have to give Starship Troopers a D minus with regards to how well the movie matched the book. While it did cover the suffrage through military service concept, with an iron hand, it missed a lot of the interesting things like the fighting suits. (Budget restrictions, according to the director.)

Re:'Twas always this way

[Stewie241]

Yes but the money comes from the audience.

No

[stoolpigeon]

As fun as it might be -- George Lucas is not the ultimate reason for this. The ultimate reason is that the major film studios are afraid to innovate and want every film to be a sure thing. He didn't make hollywood that way.

Re:No

[ajs]

Very, very true.

It's also true that Star Wars was more responsible for a mental-block on the part of those looking back at film history than it was for a change in later films.

Some films that came before Star Wars:

• Invisible Man, The (1966)
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
  
• Planet of the Apes (1968)
  
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
  
• Time Machine, The (1960)
  
• Andromeda Strain, The (1971)
  

Some films that came after Star Wars:

• Blade Runner (1982)
  
• Back to the Future (1985)
  
• Twelve Monkeys (1995)
  
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
  
• Gattaca (1997)
  
• Pi (1998)
  

You will notice that when you search for movies from these different periods, the primary thing that leaps out at you is that movies that treated science fiction as a serious genre (Pi, Gattaca, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain) are about evenly spaced. There aren't a lot of them, but they get neither more nor less frequent over the decades... We just have rose-tinted glasses when it comes to history.

Solaris

[wiredlogic]

The best recent "cerebral" Sci-Fi movie has been the Solaris remake with Clooney. I found it much more preferable to the Soviet version. It has better actors and an interesting twist was added in the end.

Re:Solaris

[gorehog]

Check out Children of Men. It's excellent.

Damn you Lucas!!!

[VitrosChemistryAnaly]

Noooooooooooooooo!

wtf is this guy talking about ?

[unity100]

Hollywood's willingness to fund science-fiction movies that actually said something about the human condition

"human condition" what is that ?

what "human condition" does Flash Gordon series contain ? or early superman series ? they are run-off-the-mill american dream robotized characters that are fighting absurd evil characters that contain no humane feelings - just evil, for evil's sake.

im not a star wars fan, but boy, star wars contain heaploads of stuff for "human condition" than any of the sci-fi stuff this guy is talking about - its about humane fears, good and evil, greed, comradeship, high ideals and lowly cravings.

Might this yet change (Re: Ender's Game)?

[HikingStick]

I am waiting to see if the movie adaptation of Ender's Game (by Orson Scott Card) will receive similar treatment (be actionized). It has much to say on the human condition, and would be a great catalyst back toward intelligent science fiction as commentary on the human condition and current events.

Re:Might this yet change (Re: Ender's Game)?

[thrawn_aj]

Bad example IMO. While Ender's Game was brilliantly written, to say that

It has much to say on the human condition is a stretch. The fact is, and SF fans (like myself) should get used to it, most serious SF is NOT simple enough to be adapted to a 2 hour movie without serious losses in clarity. "2001" was understandable only if you'd read the book. Well, by understandable, I mean, all the nuances and the undercurrents. I would say that SF is more suited to the mini-series arena, with Dune being a perfect example. The ill-fated Riverworld is another. SF has a LOT to say about the human condition. However, I feel that the best medium for it will remain books because unlike other genres, which are fairly easy to visualize, the SF writer is precisely the person who goes beyond current memes, else he/she is a failure. Instead of blaming Lucas for the current state of SF cinema, I would applaud him for bringing at least one facet of SF into the public perception, Gordonian though it may be :P. Perhaps if the Sci-Fi channel focused on promoting more intelligent shows instead of the mindless dribble that panders to the paranoid schizoid crowd (wtf do psychics or Government conspiracies have to do with SF? :O), we have a better chance of seeing some of the greater SF works (Asimov's Foundation or Clarke's RAMA - a superb PC game was made of this a decade ago) showcased in all their glory. Of course, the sad fact is that most "SF fans" or at least people who call themselves that are simply X-files fanbois who never grew up.

Bladerunner

[khasim]

One of the better movies.

And don't just look at Hollywood. There's some great Science Fiction coming out of Japan. Such as Ghost in the Shell.

I partially blame...

[nebaz]

The SCI FI channel. They seem to cancel all the good series and throw on mindless movie of the week drivel. (And WRESTLING? What's up with that?) It's too bad, I used to like the network.

oh dear lord

[geekoid]

I remember pre-SW sci-fi.
With only a few exceptions, it was all cheesy, and almost all action based. Lucas just made the action part look damn good for the time.

1970 Science fiction movies:
"The Andromeda Strain" (1971)
"Silent Running" (1972)
"Soylent Green" (1973)
"West World" (1973)
"Futureworld" (1976)
"Rollerball" (1975)
"Omega Man" (?)
"Planet of the Apes"

Some thinkers, mostly action based.

There's plenty of SF movies

[L. VeGas]

There is quite a bit of popular science fiction cinema that's not space western. It's simply not marketed as such. Off the top of my head...

The Truman Show

Being John Malcovich

Manchurian Candidate

Movie makers and marketing companies want their films to attract as broad an audience as possible. To call something "science fiction" automatically creates expectations in people's heads.

It happens in publishing as well. Margaret Atwood is a very famous example of someone that has intentionally distanced themselves from the label.

To name me is to limit me.

Re:There's plenty of SF movies

[FridayBob]

Have you seen Primer (2004)? This is Sci-Fi the way it ought to be. Everything in a story like this seems normal except that little bit of scientific speculation. Or might that actually be possible as well? And weeks/months/years later, you're still talking/thinking about it.

Movies like Star Wars may be entertaining in their own right, but they have little to do with science. That stuff has more in common with Lord of the Rings: Fastasy-Fiction, except with spaceships and lasers. Star Wars is basic Swords and Sorcery... err, light sabers and The Force.

right

[mastershake_phd]

Hollywood are a fickle bunch anyway. They rarely take chances, and when one succeeds, they copy it for for years. How many movies have there been about the urban kid who no one believed in who was good at dancing? Flash and 30 second trailers sell more than substance. Oh and Star Wars says nothing about the human condition? Are you kidding?

Science Fiction?

[Etherwalk]

Science Fiction, hell. Star Wars (And Jaws, was it?) changed the way the production studios looked at film. The amount of money involved got so much bigger suddenly that it overwhelmed the vestigial idea that movies ought to be pieces of art. It's similar to the move in publishing over the last half-century, away from a climate where your goal, when looking at a book, is to decide whether it ought to be published because it's well-written or well-crafted or has an important message, towards a climate where you decide how many dollars it's going to rank in according to a simple formula or two. Does it catch my eye on the first page? Has the author written twenty books in the genre before? Does it have a snappy snyopsis? Will the language hold someone's eye, even if it's not saying anything, because it's snappy enough?

There are still good films and good books made, but greed has pushed the idea of being "good" rather far from the central idea of the major production houses, to the point where "good" and "bad" become conflated with "popular" and "unpopular." It's all about the money. The most popular actors are generally good, but there are countless incredible actors who never attain that sort of popularity, including some who are far better than some among the popular... because the popular people are part of the formula, and tend to bring in more money, even if their acting is worse than the acting of an unknown. The same applies to writers, and to almost all art where it's a producer/distributor generating the money, and more in it for the money than for the quality of the product. If art and culture really are the metrics we ought to use to measure the output of our civilization--if it wasn't just the Industrial Revolution that mattered, but also the Renaissance--then greed can be a terrible enemy to the quality of our productions.

(Though I'll admit it can also help, at times--the rich artist can grow soft, with no need to change and grow. Look at how comedians change as their success does.)

catering to the audience

[fred fleenblat]

The pattern for the last 20 or 30 years has been for movie studios to create movies that appeal especially to teenagers. They are the most likely to want to get out of the house on friday and saturday evenings, and the most willing to part with $10 for a movie ticket. It's fun, they get to hang out with their friends, see a movie, have some popcorn, get away from homework and the parents. Whatever.

The only reason the studioes release anything else is because they make money on DVD sales and rentals downstream. You want more sci-fi? Buy every battlestar galacta, star trek, star wars, dr. who, dune, LoTR, etc DVD. Individually they are about the same as a movie ticket + some popcorn; it will look awesome on your widescreen LCD; and it sends the message that sci-fi will be supported by the audience. (Star Wars actually went against this model because it took so long to get ep 1-3 onto DVD)

Not confined to movies

[Billosaur]

Mrs. Carroll, my English teacher in high school, was unconvinced that science fiction was on a par with classic literature, even though I trotted out examples like "Farenheit 451", "Foundation", and "Childhood's End". I got very sick of Shakespeare, Henry James, and that lot as they were continuously pounded into my head as "great writing." And now that I am partner in a company that releases a science fiction journal, I can look back and laugh. If there's any problem with science fiction right now it's the scarcity of good writers; I have to say I don't read as much current work as I did when I was kid, when I absorbed Clarke, Asimov, Heilein, Niven, Pournelle, etc.

Dune

[dedazo]

I think Dune represents a good example of why people don't take Sci-Fi movies seriously. Here's an incredible literary masterpiece that combines ecology, sex, religion, politics, technology and the ultimate essay on the fragility of the human spirit. Yet the movie and the two TV series that have been published not only do not do justice to the depth of the books, they ended up being, for lack of a better word, corny.

Lynch's movie captured the "ambiance" that many people associated with Dune, but slaughtered the story. The SciFi channel series, with more time on their hands, did more justice to the story, but completely slaughtered the ambiance.

Battlefield Earth for example, once you take out the scientology crap out of the ecuation, is a eminently fun and well done sci-fi novel. Yet the movie was a fucking disaster.

What's the difference between the success of say, the Harry Potter and LOTR movies and the failures that are Dune and all the other crappy film treatments of fantasy/sci-fi books? I'm not sure, but hopefully someone will figure it out soon. There are a lot of excellent books out there - who wouldn't want to see a movie based on Niven's Ringworld series? Or Saberhagen's Berserker opera? - that would make fantastic movies.

Obligatory Star Trek Troll (Trowl?)

[gorehog]

I'm a fan of Star Trek. All of it. Even Nemesis and Enterprise.

However, I am also a fan of Frank Herbert, Isaac Asmiov, Kurt Vonnegut, William Gibson, and Phillip K. Dick.

With all that said I'm going to reiterate something I said in college.

Star Trek killed science fiction. With a phaser. Star Wars helped, but Gene Rodenberry has a lot to answer for.

See, what they both did was take the science out of the fiction. Dune too, to a great extent. More and more often these stories are less about how science changes the human condition and instead are about how science simply enables a new setting for the same old story. The fiction goes from involving the scientific aspect to working around it.

For instance if anyone ever tells Oedipus Rex as a science fiction story you will know it's horseshit. In any scientific culture Oedipus would have had his DNA tested to reveal his ancestry.

IEEE Spectrum had an article on this many years ago where they pointed out that for all the SCIENCE in TOS it was always the captain and rarely the science officer or engineer who finally saved the day.

In all fairness maybe we shouldnt blame the writers but the publishers. Whose idea is it to put Sci-fi and fantasy in the same section of the bookstore. There's nothing more iritating than browsing in a bookstore for a good scifi book and finding something with sword laden dragon hunters or somesuch. What I'm saying is that Tolkein, Leguinn, and Pratchett should go find their own damn shelves.

Star wars is not...

[budword]

future based. Are you new here ? A long time ago......

There's no real -stigma-, It's just expensive

[*weasel]

Ignore the scifi angle, and compare something like Dark City to Memento.
Both were really good mysteries, both did 'meh' business. Guess which one cost more to make and therefore, made the studios more dough?

The only real 'stigma' against SciFi/Fantasy is that it's expensive. As a general rule, the bigger your budget, the more the studios insist on playing it safe. They aim at the big audiences more likely to earn back the investment and dial down anything challenging/quirky/contentious/etc.

The natural target? The 18-25 action/adventure crowd.

Why should a studio spend the extra money doing a SciFi mystery, if they cost more and gross about as much as a contemporary mystery? Similarly for a drama, comedy, horror, etc.

Prejudice

[digitalhermit]

I've always wondered the same thing... IMHO, the problem is that there's a misunderstanding of what constitutes science fiction. It's almost like watching a play versus a movie. In a play you don't think about the set so much as the story and the acting. If the clouds in a play look like pillows it's OK. But in a movie we want a lot of visual realism.

Many science fiction movies do a similar thing with theme. In a conventional movie it's desirable for the theme to be hidden. Apocalypse Now is only a war movie on the surface; same with Platoon or Saving Private Ryan. But with science fiction it's quite different. It's expected that the theme *is* the story. What are the consequences of genetic manipulation? What are the consequences of atomic power? If machines could think, should we give them the same rights as humans?

But critics have been trained since high school to look for the subtext, the hidden theme. Confronted with something new, they fall into their learned prejudices. Maybe they should red more literature from non-European, non-dead authors instead of being so closed-minded.

It's not just Sci-Fi channel; it's the market, too

[CleverNickName]

A few years ago, some friends of mine and I pitched the Sci-Fi channel, and I heard directly from a very highly-placed executive that the network was actually making a conscious effort to move away from SF programming and do more "Scare Tactics" style programming in an effort to capture portions of the SpikeTV market.

I foolishly (for the goal of selling a show to them) observed that running away from the very thing that made the network popular -- and was in the damn name, by the way -- probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but the geek in me overpowered the hopeful businessman. Oh well.

Those craptacular movies you're referring to (I did two of them: Python and Deep Core) used to go directly to video in the USA, while also being sold to foreign markets to make back money for their investors. However, with the advent of basic cable and channels like Sci-Fi, they usually are produced by, and air on one of those stations (think Lifetime, TNT, etc.) before heading off to the bargain rack at the car wash.

One of the points made in TFA is that intelligent movies have been replaced with action movies, and thoughtful plots have been replaced with explosions and spectacle. One of the reasons I tend to agree with the parent on Sci-Fi being part of the problem here is that they still translate these movies into several different languages, and distribute them all over the world; an explosion and a scantily-clad starlet are essentially the same in any language or culture, so it's easier to sell those films (to Sci-Fi and to the foreign markets) when they're simplistic, "four-color" 90-minute packages, instead of complex 2001-esque masterpieces.

Re:Deep impact, The Day After Tomorrow

[bsandersen]

At the risk of enticing you to make your tenth posting on this subject, let me try to clarify: Storytelling is the thing. Having a compelling story about people, hopes, dreams, obsticles, heros, antiheros, and the like are what makes good fiction, and good cinema. Bladerunner had great special effects, but it was also a compelling story. Serenity (and Firefly) was a fabulous vehicle combining the Wild West and the lonely ship's captain. If the characterization and storytelling were weak, we wouldn't love it as we do. My point was simply this: the best examples of science fiction (in print or screen) emphasize good fiction. When the elements of fiction are good, the science part is just a backdrop, part of the scenery. There are plenty of examples where the science (gizmos, ray guns, space ships, and time machines) came first with plots and characterization akin to "It was a dark and stormy night..." that leave us embarrassed for the work's creators. (Millennium [1989] with Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd comes to mind.) Interesting stories, like the ones I listed, have something to say and the science doesn't get in the way. The very best have people suspending their disbelief easily and comfortably, as with Firefly and its horses and space ships mixed up in the same scenes. Give me the good story, then we'll work on the backdrop. My two-cents.

TNG was all about science changing the hc

[master_p]

TNG was all about how science changing the human condition. That's why it was the best Star Trek show. DS9 was a simple soap opera, Voyager was a simple adventure in space, Enterprise was...better not tell, and TOS was cheesy.

Where to start from...let's see...

artificial forms' rights? the whole story of Data was about that.

AI? Data, again. He even created a child.

3d hologram technology and consequences? lt Barcley's holodeck excursions, LaForge's love with a virtual character.

The consequences of very advanced weaponry? lots of stories here about balance of war.

Racism? Federation values and mistreatment of alien races.

Sexuality? Riker's affairs with asexual races, the trill woman and the doctor.

Cloning? Riker's brother, Lore.

What reality means in the presence of technology? Riker's episode in the hands of alien mind benders.

The consequences of nanotechnology? the episode with the nano-machines.

History and archeology? the episode where Picard finds out the common ancestor race for most races of the A and B quadrants.

Sociology and biology? unification.

Cyborg technology? the whole Borg story was about that.

Religion? many episodes where Picard was treated as god.

Politics? quite many episodes.

Money? the structure of the Federation as an advanced form of society that does not need money.

Evolution of civilization? Federation citizens evolved into people that aim to better themselves and not simply consume resources.

Strange stellar and time-space continuum phenomena? plenty of episodes as well.

Time travel and consquences? yet again, many episodes.

Terrorism and 'cause justifies the means'? season 3, episode with terrorists possessing a super-transporter device. Maquis.

Anti-gravity? Star Trek's home.

Psionics and telepathy? besides Deanna Troi, there were lots of episodes where telepathic races did various things with various consequences.

Espionage? plenty of Romulan-related episodes.

Tortures and human rights? 'I see 4 lights'.

Parenthood and what it means to raise children? lt Worf, his wife, his child Alexander.

Actually, La Forge and Data saved the day in quite a lot of episodes...in fact, in more episodes than Picard did.

See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek:_Th e_Next_Generation_episodes for the list of episodes and the tremendous catalog of topics TNG dealt with.

TNG is above and beyond all other sci-fi shows.

Odyssey 2001? was HAL science? it was more magic than science. Artificial gravity in Odyssey 2001? yeah, it could work, but man will not go to the Stars in rotating cylinders. The monolith? increbible black magic box.

Blade Runner? yeah, cloning. Big deal. Seen and discussed a thousand times in TNG.

Doctor Who? let me laugh. The doctor, travelling in time, battling injustice? with a ship bigger from the inside? what kind of science is this? where is the science, actually?

Farscape? nothing that Star Trek has not shown before.

Galactica 2003? firearms instead of lazer guns, Christian God preaching instead of ancient Gods? no thank you sir. It is ridiculus. Galactica 1978 was much better.

So...Star Trek did not kill Sci-fi. TNG was the most popular show, because of its tremendous diversity in topics.

Sci-fi was killed by the mindless stupid and silly shows that followed.