Is Sci-Fi Film Dead?

[jamotto]

Over here they are discussing this issue I think it is a good question.

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Is story driven, character based science fiction film dead?

Isaac Asimov once divided science fiction literature into four time periods:

ÔÇó 1926-38--adventure dominant

ÔÇó 1938-50--science dominant

ÔÇó 1950-65--sociology dominant

ÔÇó 1966-present--style dominant

The Golden Age of science fiction literature (the 1940s and1950s) provided most of the stories that have been borrowed, paid homage to, recycled, ripped off, and used as scripts for modern sci-fi film. In fact these story lines are now so tired and have been cannibalized so many times that many writers and directors of science fiction film seem to have done away with the story altogether in favor 90 minute video games passed off as movies (Riddick Chronicles, Star Wars prequels, Matrix 2 & 3, odd numbered Star Trek movies, etc.).

Has the present age of style over substance, and more specifically CGI special effects style, been the death knell of sci-fi film?

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[Zane_Marlowe]

I thought Babylon 5 was good science fiction. That was only television, but that was the right medium for the story it was telling. Anyways, I don't think Sci-Fi film is dead. Other recent examples include Minority Report, Bicentennial Man (based on an Asimov story), Dark City, Gattaca, and AI.

Remember, not all Sci Fi is space opera, but all sci-fi encourages us to think about what might be if... Several of those films listed above are extra credit for my philosophy classes because I'm trying to get them to engage big ideas, so that's why I think Sci-Fi is still alive.

We don't always get it in a Kubrick-class art wrapper (ala 2001), but who says big ideas have to come off like art?

[Scrivener]

I actually think that the late 70s/early 80's began to usher in a new type of science fiction - politics dominant. As of right now, we have entered a kind of 'action dominant' phase. Take a look at I, Robot. It was a bloody action movie, with not a shred of substance to be found. This wave will last at least until 2010, at which point special effects and CG will have become cheap enough and advanced enough for indie filmakers to start churning out stories with a little depth.

The problem with scifi is the same problem that plagues the film industry as a whole. The studios don't give a rats ass whether a film is good or not. They want the big bucks - whatever will get the largest possible audience. That means dumbing it down, shortening it up, and editing it for content. The more expensive the movie, the more formulaic it must be - to protect the investment. That's why cheap movies can afford to be daring, they require a much smaller turnout to turn a profit. What this means is that big expensive scifi movies cannot and will not be anything short of box office brain-rot until the cost of production on these types of films comes way down.

Worse yet, the few films that would be able to revitalize the genre are being held back by big studios. I'm talking about the original cuts of Blade Runner and David Lynch's Dune. These two pictures are considered among the pinnacle of modern scifi, and both are only available as chopshop releases at best.

The Blade Runner DVD we have today is very different than the version that played in theatres some years ago. The 'Director's Cut' is actually missing content - including full narraration by Harrisson Ford. A special 3-disc DVD set was created with a new 3rd version, which incorporated not only the voice-over but tons of new footage once thought missing. The way it looks now, messy legal issues have tied up this special DVD set in cinema-Hell indefinately.

Dune is basically the story of Brazil if the studios had won. Frank Herbert was a consultant at every step of the film process and was excited that Lynch had completed what was to be a 5-hour epic with intermission. The studio, however, was not interested in scifi epics of any kind and decided to make the movie more palpable to the mainstream Star Wars audience. They cut Herbert and Lynch out of the picture, and cut the 5-hour epic down to just over 2 hours. The 2hr 17min theatrical version is what is currently available on DVD. A few years ago a television channel managed to get their hands on some of the extra footage and cut together an extended 3.5hr version of the film (fullscreen only). Neither that version nor the original 5+hr cut have ever surfaced on any kind of VHS, Laserdisc, or DVD. Noone knows what has become of the original footage.

My point is, scifi is already dead. Even while the two above films are considered the pinnacle of their art, they have already been bereft of their souls. How much greater could they have been if the studios hadn't meddled then? It's stories like these that break my heart. Reflecting on the Dune scenario alone will leave me depressed for the rest of the week. Shoot, even Kill Bill was censored for US audiences.

The point is (if I havn't made it clear enough) that scifi movies currently require larger budgets to pull off properly. Studios wont take risks when larger budgets are involved, so they must conform to a certain formula. Only low-budget indy films have total freedom, but they dont have the money to envision the fantastic worlds of tomorrow without surrendering to the studios guidelines of conformity.

Scifi is dead indeed. Like all film, it will remain dead until the studios are deposed and the artists are given complete control. We are only just entering a period when movies are cheap enough that they can be made by poor artists with great vision. Before now, only the big guys could afford it. Still, it will be many years before indy filmakers will have the resources to duplicate big hollywood effects on their own meager budgets.

[jamotto]

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Originally posted by Zane Marlowe:

Other recent examples include Minority Report, Bicentennial Man (based on an Asimov story), Dark City, Gattaca, and AI.

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Not real sure I would call them recent.

Minority Report was published in 1958

Bicentennial Man in 1976

AI in 1969

Dark City in 1976

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We don't always get it in a Kubrick-class art wrapper (ala 2001), but who says big ideas have to come off like art?

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Good point

Just hope that Scrivener is not right and have to wait til 2010 to see original film again.

[Scrivener]

2010 will be about the time that independant filmakers will have the resources/technology to make professional-quality scifi productions. At the moment those types of projects cost tens of millions of dollars - by 2010 they will cost 'mere' thousands or tens of thousands. What this means is that the real artists will be able to translate their full vision to screen on their own budget... without having greedy studios chopping up their work. Having a major studio finance your film is like asking for a favor from the Godfather (Or selling your soul to the devil). Somewhere down the line they're gonna show up and screw you on exactly that thing they were 'helping' you with. SC can tell you from his own experience... the game industry is the same way.

But that's why I say 2010. It's simple matter of what is technically possible on an independant (sub $1m) budget. The only time you will ever get a great movie is when the studio has kept their dirty hands completely off the project. That will only happen when they havn't forked out any dough (Because then they won't see the need to make it more 'marketable' to 'protect' their investment). 2010. That's the number, and the year we make contact... with more great scifi.

Hopefully by then we'll also have the new Blade Runner DVD (maybe). I don't hold much hope for the 5-hour Dune, however.

[Zane_Marlowe]

Now I still didn't see you respond to the reference to Babylon 5, which fought its way through five seasons and won a Hugo (or two?) for its storytelling. I put an exception to it for it's being television, but if the point is about sci-fi as adapted to a visual medium, I think B5 was most suited to television given the expansive nature of the story.

That said, I also cited those examples of recent sci-fi movies as sci-fi movies, not as their parent sources that are clearly older. If you're looking for original ideas in sci-fi, and you're looking for them to appear on film first, then I'd have to think about it.

To Scrivener's remarks about studios, I think the main "problem" if there is one is that people don't go to the movies for high aesthetic pleasure or to experience art; they go for entertainment and spectacle. One studio exec said that they do the I, Robot's to pay for the riskier films they know they'll lose money on. Also, remember that by 2010 there WON'T be affordable CGI for those indie filmmakers if you don't have big budget CGI-fests that sustain the SFX market and innovate new technologies so that the existing ones drop in price. Some of that is just hardware and software, but remember that some of the "big budget" is building tools that other people can then use cheaply.

I don't think Sci-Fi is dead, but I do think we see science differently than we did 50 years ago, so Sci-Fi has accordingly lost some of its luster since we no longer think of science as a panacea from which we will have all and only good things. We exchanged Utopias for Dystopias, especially the nuclear variety, in the latter half of the 20th century (even after WWI if you want to go that far back), and who wants to spend all their time looking forward to that?

[jamotto]

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Originally posted by Zane Marlowe:

Now I still didn't see you respond to the reference to Babylon 5, which fought its way through five seasons and won a Hugo (or two?) for its storytelling.

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It won two.

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If you're looking for original ideas in sci-fi, and you're looking for them to appear on film first, then I'd have to think about it.

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I was thinking more along those lines.

[Kevin Trotter]

Zane has some good points. The best Sci-fi as visual art seems to be on TV. Actually Zane and Scriv in a sense agree with eachother. The indie films Scriv refers to in a sense are TV shows with smaller budgets and expectations. Dune (The Mini series) 4400, Taken and the like at least try to tackle some of the big issues that literature does so well. Studios are more driven by profit have greater expectations and play to wider markets. TV shows can focus on thier core audience without dumbing down the script.

I have high hopes that as a Visual medium sci-fi will continue to thrive

[LostInSpace]

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Originally posted by Scrivener:

Hopefully by then we'll also have the new Blade Runner DVD (maybe).

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A new Blade Runner DVD? I do hope it will be with the original theatrical release along with the directors cut. Better yet, just make it where you can enable or disable Ford's voice over.

[Scrivener]

In some ways, I was more upset by scifi's Taken and Dune than I was by I, Robot. Taken, while well done, totally botched up it's facts all over the place... but that's another story. My problem with SciFi Channel is that they are no longer the truth-seekers they used to be - now they are merely capitalizing on the entire paranormal subculture, I don't like like it.

It's like having a 'Catholic' channel that makes action movies with Jesus as the main character. It's absurd.

And DUNE... don't even get me started. They needed actors passionate about the material (and all from the same country), and they needed to borrow some of Lynch's costume designs. As it ended up, the costumes looked they were designed by a high school cheerleading team and the accents were as varied and annoying as the colors of the butterflies on Irulian's dress. The special effects were so far beyond amateur that border on complete ineptitude (and don't blame it on budget, I would have done infinately better for a fraction of whatever they paid)... and they STILL screwed up the Ornithopters. For heavens sakes - did anyone designing these things ever read the books?

I promise you all with God as my witness, some day I will remake Dune the way it has always deserved.

...I've been doing storyboards for my version for years. Eventually I'll edit the storyboards like a movie with music and everything. If storyboards can entertain an executive, just imagine a real movie.

Children of Dune, on the other hand, that wasn't half bad.

As for Babylon 5, I totally forgot about that! I loved that show as a kid - the political and social intrigue, it was great. The 'action' always irritated me, tho. Silly early-CG spaceships and all. And this is me as a kid. But then again, I was that kid who was always pissed that they would never release a 'normal' Batman action figure.

When I make movies, it'll be like they were made in the golden days of filmaking. The way Star Wars was done. Low budget, plenty of model kits and greenscreen. As little CG and as much character as possible.

[Guest WhiteRook]

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I promise you all with God as my witness, some day I will remake Dune the way it has always deserved.

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Might want to start buying those powerball tickets.

[scydiver]

Have you, guys, seen what they'd done to the "Starship Troopers", those "Starship Troopers 2" should had been called "Alien 28837...". All marines on my carrier put their gear back into stockade and went into open space so huge was heir grieve...

[Captain McMahon]

What do you think of the Sci-Fi TV series Stargate SG-1 and what they have done to the BSG series? I'm not mentioning SG-A since it still needs time to get into what's it's talking about and only included BSG because it seemed many have an opinion on it.