I was chatting online with a friend earlier today about various movies and movie trailers we’ve recently come across and how, being something of sci-fi junkies, we were looking forward to them. At the very least, we were intrigued by them.
As we move through the glut of sequels this summer, headed for more…original waters (of course, “original” is relative, as the movies I’m looking at today are all adaptations of books/graphic novels), it’s interesting to note the recent trends toward this style of movie. It’s pretty easy to see. We have lately witnessed a massive number of science fiction and comic book-based films, fantasy epics, and even a resurgence of horror movies, particularly those with zombies or torture-based horror.
While I don’t have a ton of evidence just laying around to support what I’m about to say, I have read previously that the sci-fi/fantasy genres flourish during times of war, fear, and political uncertainty. The 1950′s saw a lot of it, then again in the late ’60′s and early ’70′s, and now today. Again, easy to see as many of the flicks have dealt in one way or another (as is the wont of the genre) with dystopian, war-torn, or post-apocalyptic futures, usually where the future is in question.
A lot of this bolsters my own belief in the validity of sci-fi/fantasy as something of a metagenre (or maybe a hypergenre) in that unlike most other genres, it is (at least in its truest sense) a vehicle for expressing or exploring abstract concepts and ideas in understandable ways. Certainly this is a generalization, especially given all the bad science fiction that exists just for the sake of throwing an alien invasion into a movie.
However, consider some examples. I, Robot explores free will versus predestination on a parallel path with the philosophical discussion of what it means to live. Signs is set amidst an impending alien invasion, but the real story is the question of faith and the workings of God in both the good and the bad events in life. Children of Men looks into the impact of children and the importance of hope and its balance against the depravity of mankind. Now-defunct television series like “Firefly,” “The X-Files,” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” dealt with the meaning of life, limits and purpose of government, definition of family, explorations of truth, morality, and humanity, etc. These are just a few off the top of my head, and I’m sure you can come up with others.
Whether the film is low-budget art-house or the next Hollywood blockbuster, whether it takes itself very seriously or is somewhat cheesy, and whether the film’s protagonists are battling viral zombiefication, the sterilization of the human race, or run-of-the-mill vampires, aliens, or the latest mutated superbeing on the block, there are thematic issues at work throughout the genre that would take a team of grad students all writing their thesis paper on the subject to unravel.
So why did I get into it in a blog post? It was an accident, really. I started off just being intrigued by the movie trailers below and realized they had a lot in common–with each other, and with a lot of other stuff out there. As I indicated earlier, a large thread running through many of the recent offerings in the sci-fi/fantasy genre is one that depicts cultural uncertainty about the future of mankind, particularly as it intersects with war and disaster. Critically acclaimed or not, high art or not, think about Pan’s Labyrinth, War of the Worlds, even the Resident Evil and 28 Days/Weeks Later movies.
I know this is already way longer than usual, but bear with me a bit longer. The first trailer I watched the other day was for a movie called The Invasion, with Nicole Kidman and the latest (and greatest?) 007 on the silver screen, Daniel Craig. It looks like another version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but having never seen an adaptation myself (or read the book), it looks pretty good to me. Check out the trailer here.
Next up is another adaptation, this time from a classic graphic novel (one that I’ve not read). Where can the dying race of vampires go when they need time and refuge to increase their race again? How about further north, where the sun goes down for a month, leaving 30 Days of Night. While the movie’s probably more gory than I’ll be interested in, the concept is pretty killer–no pun intended. Trailer here.
Finally, we have I Am Legend, starring Will Smith (an actor in whom I’ve never been disappointed). Lots of familiar elements here: some kind of disaster, Smith as the last man allegedly alive, only he’s not alone because a lot of the people that had supposedly disappeared are now a race of vampire-like creatures. Yes, vampires again; fear and uncertainty about the future, remember? Whoops…here’s the trailer.
So, I’m sure you can see why I started talking about the bigger picture of why we have a lot of these kinds of movies showing up all of a sudden. I’m sure books have been written by smarter people than myself dissecting the whole phenomenon that ties the hypergenre of sci-fi/fantasy with cultural pulse-points and historical happenings. I know I didn’t nearly scratch the surface, or even say everything that I thought of saying (I apologize if the flow of the post is thus somewhat disjointed). But hopefully it’s at least food for thought…
I think you raise a pretty interesting point, Aaron, in that we do tend to see more films that delve into the supernatural or unknown when our country is going through times of uncertainty. Even though both X-Men and Spider-Man were great films in and of themselves, it’s no wonder that after 9/11, our nation was “searching” for a metaphorical hero to make all things better. The idea of having an individual who had the power to perhaps stop those events from happening opened up the minds of entertianment consumers to comic-book superheroes (after a decade long hiatus). Subsequentially, many films have now followed featureing both legendary (Superman, Batman) and newly created (The Incredibles) superheroes.
I believe, ultimately, that this hunger for a “savior of the world” by the mainstream culture is really an inherent hunger for the true savior, Jesus Christ. Especially in our time and place now, people are in need of Jesus more than ever. But apparently it’s easier to believe in silver-screen adaptaion of a comic-book hero and the actual savior of man.
You’re so right on. In fact, not related to sci fi but related to people dealing with uncertain times through their reactions to pop culture, I heard a piece on MPR today about the end of the sopranos (I guess they just made the screen go black in the middle of an unresolved scene and that was the end) and how people were so bothered by that because they are looking for a clear ending in the midst of maybe an unclear future regarding Iraq, the housing market, gas prices, etc.
Signs: BEST MOVIE EVER. I seriously love that movie. I tell people it’s not really about aliens, but about faith. I’m not sure they all believe me, but glad to see you agree.
How can you not think that about Signs? It was one of the clearest (and most Calvinistic) pictures of faith on the screen I’ve seen in a long time! Particularly given that the director professes to subscribe to no particular faith…
You’re pretty smart…I think I’d just say other more informed people could write a better something about it, like those grad students who’d been studying it professionally for years.