More and more, I find Sci-fi movies being based around special effects rather than a good story. What does this leave us feeling? Empty. Do you guys think we will ever find our way back? Do you think that the CGI craze will die down a little so that filmmakers can concentrate on character development and stroyline more?

Ahhh...for the days of Alien. A good question indeed my fine furry friend. We go to todays sci-fi flicks because we long for that adventure to another world. But it's all fluff.

There are substantive science fiction films with an emphasis on plot, characterization, and style, but they are few and far between. I think they also tend to challenge the general public (and Hollywood's) relatively narrow definiton of the genre. The most recent example that comes to my mind is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I thought it well written, well directed, well performed, which are qualities I tend to enjoy in a film. Critics seem to be most comfortable describing it as fantasy, but if we accept hypersleep and aliens with acid for blood as science fiction, why not a clinical procedure for removing memories? It's a trope that worked well for Issac Asimov, C.M. Kornbluth, and Philip K. Dick, among others.

I'll be curious if ESotSM makes the 2005 Hugo ballot. I mean if Apollo 13 was nominated, really!

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I didn't groove to well on "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and to answer the original question, yes I agree special effects are taking up too much of the stage.

Did science fiction ever have a good reputation for storytelling, in the cinema at least?
First we had giant creatures mutating from atomic consequences, then the alien invasion began, and now we're of to other worlds, mainly in the future.
If these stories are weak, at least we can depend on the spectacle.

But before we had mutation, invasion, and colonization, burning man, Fritz Lang gave us Metropolis in 1927, William Cameron Menzies gave us Things to Come in 1936, and Robert Wise gave us The Day the Earth Stood Still in 1951 (okay, that example is pretty much concurrent with BEMs) all of which are terrific storytelling. Three films spanning almost a quarter century isn't the best record, but certainly gives us reason to believe that the potential is there for substance over style.

Now Playing: The Wizard of Oz on TNT <-- mark's right as rain, it's such a great film...

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Originally posted by LinnTate:
But before we had mutation, invasion, and colonization, burning man, Fritz Lang gave us _http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/_ in 1927, William Cameron Menzies gave us _http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028358/_ in 1936, and Robert Wise gave us _http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043456/_ in 1951 (okay, that example is pretty much concurrent with BEMs) all of which are terrific storytelling. Three films spanning almost a quarter century isn't the best record, but certainly gives us reason to believe that the potential is there for substance over style.

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Certainly these films are outstanding classics in thier field, particularly for genre buffs like myself( I would add 2001 to these), but if you put these movies in front of the current movie going audience would they be as appreciated, I wonder? The current attention span of the movie-going populace is considered quite short by movie distributors, and since the bottom line dictates content, I lament for any real challangeing material in this genre, particularly if the budget is split between script and effects.

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Originally posted by burning man:
Certainly these films are outstanding classics in thier field, particularly for genre buffs like myself( I would add 2001 to these), but if you put these movies in front of the current movie going audience would they be as appreciated, I wonder?

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They would absolutely be appreciated! Well, not Metropolis so much. Or Things to Come. The Day the Earth Stood Still would...well...maybe...okay, probably not. But, 2001? Nah.

Your point is well taken. If the question is, does the genre have a reputation for superior storytelling, only among those whose knowledge runs deeper than the blockbusters. I think the public at large considers the genre trivial and lacking substance. This is something of an irony given the fact that if that's what they're getting from the genre, it's only because (as you point out) it seems to be pretty much what they want.

Perhaps the greater problem lies in the fact that there is a dichotomy within the genre itself. Since Wells, it has been largely characterized as a literature of ideas. I like the gee-whiz factor as much as the next fan, but it does not necessarily have to crowd craft out of the equation.

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring on TNT...not exactly the genre at hand, but close enough to be a case in point...

The question "are we lost" I think implies that there was a time when the genre wasn"t "lost", and it is this assertion that I question. As you quite rightly point out, there are some undeniable classics in the field, but I submit that these are "accidental classics", and on the whole, the genre is dominated by the gee-whizz factor, 'cause in the end, putting bums on seats is what counts. If movie-makers can continually get away with foistering no-story,affects laden trivia on us they will. They have NO incentive to do otherwise.

I think your response, burning man, frames my own thinking on the subject better than I've stated before and maybe better than I had really considered in the first place.

The shame of it is, film and television have come to define the genre to a greater degree than books and the former increasingly drives decisions that are made regarding the latter. It's a sadness to me to see serial novels based on film and television crowd original fiction off of the shelves of bookstores. While it's true that serial fiction has a long history in the genre, I fear the time that a novel by a young author in the tradition of Arthur C. Clarke is as much an "accidental classic" in the world of publishing as 2001 is within the world of film.

Oh, for goodness sake. The context of the current discussion finally prodded my pea brain into putting two and two together regarding your screen name. Nicely chosen!

"Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun."

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Then you might well appreciate my love for this genre, both written and filmed. That is why I'm willing to take the scraps off the table that Hollywood throws my way, rather than have the genre ignored altogether because it is considered to eletist or, worst still, trivial. If they keep flinging this stuff our way, we might be fortunate enough to get another "accidental classic" in our lifetime.

I don't think cgi is the problem. What the problem is with movies these days is the plot/theme of it. Does anyone agree?

Martian Leader.

Wow, this is an old thread… but maybe one that was worth reviving?

There have been times I’ve felt that we’re lost, but after reading this I think you’re right, burning man. Was the genre ever found? I haven’t seen many old school Sci-Fi/Fantasies if not any of the old classics that were mentioned earlier in the thread, so I’ve probably just been making the assumption that everything that I have viewed while growing up, and everything that came out before I was born, is and has always been regarded as classic, and so I’ve never gone and critiqued it the way I would now when I see a new film. This leads me to wonder if we’re in an age where it’s “cool” to just rag shit on everything. I know I’ve certainly bashed many films, particularly in cases where something that has a high level of nostalgic value is recreated into a film.

At any rate, I don’t think it’s so much CGI that is to blame, if anything CGI should be something that offers visual reward for the story telling and character development, not something that hinders it. It’s simply a matter of Hollywood sticking with the same stock and safe story being rearranged and replaced with different settings and characters every time, but even still, a lot of the logic within the story itself is ignored and highly flawed, and often over looked because all most people want or need to understand is “good guy fights bad guy”, the fact that the villains plot may make little if no sense at all, doesn’t seem that important. I wonder if I’m being too critical, and that maybe I should just enjoy the film, but sometimes I can’t help but think “how can they invest millions of dollars of budget into this when the plot holes could have so easily been fixed?”

I was watching Mission to Mars (2000) the other night for the first time, and I feel this film is a perfect example for this thread. At the end of the film, the main characters discover that Aliens once colonised a beautiful and very Earth like Mars, but then a comet hit, destroying the echo system and rendering the planet as it is now. The Alien race moved to another galaxy, but not of course before randomly sending their DNA to earth as a seed, which ultimately was the sole cause for the creation of all life on Earth, thus making these Aliens from Mars our ancient genetic ancestors.

After watching this film I felt like the storyteller had been leading me on for an hour and a half only to tell me to get lost at the end. I had all these questions, like:

1. Why did the Aliens go to another galaxy, Earth was right next door?
2. Why hadn’t these Aliens already colonised Earth? They had the technology to fly to another galaxy, but no, in the midst of being as advanced as they were, the thought of colonising that other planet right next door never occurred to them. Note: Earth was as beautiful and lush during their existence as it is now.
3. Why did they send their DNA to Earth? The film also implies that even still after however many billions of years, our DNA is the same as theirs. I don’t know much about DNA, but I’m pretty sure that in any light of logic, that is wrong, since how could they have sparked all life on Earth, yet only human DNA is the same as theirs?
4. Why was the only clue of their existence that they left behind put on another planet, and why was it so recklessly dangerous? (The clue was human DNA missing a pair of chromosomes and translated into sound, and the mechanism annihilated anything that responded to it incorrectly)
5. Why haven’t they ever returned, or made contact? The damn Alien hologram that explains all this garbage to the humans sheds a tear as if we’re their children or something.

There is more but I’ll stop.

I believe the answer is more convoluted than yes or no because science fiction movies as a contemporary genre as many movies have conflicting aims and goals, independent producers and corporate profit bottomlines, and the notion of film as entertainment versus art. I believe there are examples of both even now. It's not so much as science fiction is lost as much as there isn't a defined movie film industry as a whole theme, direction, intent. Perhaps, one could argue that blockbuster science fiction movies may require appeal to the lowest common demominator in order to pack in the most dollars which might include special effects, but this might not be necessarily so. Thus it is important to locate both a blockbuster science fiction movie with an intelligent story as the same time (special effects included or not). Personally, I'm going to have to do some research on this premise and it's past midnight and I need to get some rest. So stay tuned. [Oh by the way. I really, really enjoyed reading Super'Shed's post (preceeding post). It was well written and had good observations.] In the meantime, I've already touched on this topic elsewhere - happened to Sci-Fi as a genre? 13 August 2005 and 07 March 2006.

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