Triumphant Technology and Minimal Man: The Technological Society, Science Fiction Films, and Ridley Scott’s Alien

Extrapolation ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. J. Matheson
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Technological Society ◽  
Science Fiction Films

Military Stock Footage

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Hantke
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
The Public ◽  
Standard Device ◽  
The Common ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
The Military

This chapter focuses on the recruitment of the audience into the “military metaphysics” that C. Wright Mills decries as a symptom of America's Cold War mentality. More specifically, it reads attempts at recruitment made by science fiction films of the period through the use of military stock footage. Pilfering the public domain for footage to be inserted into one's own film was a standard device of inexpensive filmmaking that found one of its most extreme expressions in Alfred E. Green's Invasion U.S.A. (1952). Generally dismissed as a hack job and mercilessly lampooned by Mystery Science Theater 3000, Invasion U.S.A. is a prime example of a politically engaged film using one of the common stylistic devices of 1950s low-budget filmmaking.

Close Encounters: Genre and Context

2016 ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
Jon Towlson
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Greek Mythology ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Special Effects ◽  
Star Wars ◽  
The Third ◽  
Close Encounters ◽  
Human Need ◽  
Science Fiction Films

This chapter discusses the genre and context of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). It begins by tracing the emergence of science fiction in literature and in cinema. The chapter then looks at how film serials popularised pulp science-fiction cinema in the form of rocketships, ray guns, alien invaders, evil intergalactic emperors, and damsels in distress. One can see them as the inspiration for the likes of Star Wars and the myriad superhero blockbuster movies that continue to dominate Hollywood today. In 1968, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey returned science fiction to its origins in Greek mythology. It is perhaps the first example of ‘transcendent’ science-fiction cinema, exploring the human need to place trust in a force larger than ourselves. In the early 1970s, science-fiction films were more overtly concerned with identity and environment, and how both were increasingly shaped or misshapen by technology. Meanwhile, post-9/11 has seen a move towards intelligent science fiction as a bankable commodity within Hollywood. Part of the genre's continuing appeal is, of course, the showcasing of state-of-the-art cinema technology within the sci-fi narrative. Special-effects technology has evolved in line with cinema's own development.

‘I’ll hurt you if you stay.’ The Fly scene-by-scene: Act Two

The Fly ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 87-96
Author(s):  
Emma Westwood
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Cellular Level ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Real ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
Emotional Resonance

This chapter describes the scenes of Act Two of David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986). In Act Two, Seth Brundle makes the transition from amiable and reclusive scientist to predatory and misogynistic Brundlefly — a seamless character transition that creeps up on the audience through Cronenberg's screenplay and direction, and Jeff Goldblum's subtle yet defined performance. As the Brundlefly persona comes to the fore, the audience still sympathises with the overtly animalistic, egregious person he has become. They know this is not the real Seth; it is the corruption of Seth at a cellular level. Cronenberg's patented brand of body horror is coming into its own right here with Seth finally admitting to himself that something is wrong. He questions whether he is dying, and if this is what dying is like, which directly references Cronenberg's own explanation of the film: that it is an allegory for our mortality as human beings and the natural processes that lead to old age and death. It is by way of the computer that he discovers his DNA has fused with a fly — the vital ‘reveal’ — in a cinematic moment common to many great science-fiction films where pivotal information of emotional resonance is not communicated between human beings but between human and machine.

Epilogue Imagining future cities

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-124
Author(s):  
Carl Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Future ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Future Visions ◽  
City Planners

“Imagining future cities” contrasts the idea of the human city with the robot city, an idea that is never far away from the cities of the future we see in science fiction films. As some of these future visions demonstrate, the ideal city contains elements of both the human and robot city and is powered by big data and technological developments, as well as human connections and recognizable hubs like the bar, bazaar, and branch library. As well as function and commerce, city planners of the future will need to remember the roles of community and interaction in keeping cities alive.

scholarly journals Postcards from the future

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 12-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Miller
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Southern California ◽  
Northern California ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
The Future ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
Photo Essay ◽  
The Way

This article contemplates the way Northern and Southern California have been used in science fiction films since the 1970s. Continuing a trend the author traces to the 1940s novels Earth Abides and Ape and Essence, Northern California represents possible utopian futures while Southern California represents dystopia. The article includes a photo essay featuring science fiction film stills held up against their filming locations in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

W cieniu radiacji. Seksualizacje bomby atomowej w kulturze popularnej lat 40. i 50. w Stanach Zjednoczonych

2017 ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
Piotr Urbanowicz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Atomic Bomb ◽  
Outer Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Cinema ◽  
Social Concerns ◽  
Science Fiction Films

The aim of the article is to present a phenomenon of the sexualization of an atomic bomb in the popular culture of the 1940s and the 1950s in the United States. On the basis of sociological and cultural studies, the author lists the functions of this phenomenon. Furthermore, he uses the examples of press reports and popular cinema to indicate that the sexualization of the atomic bomb resulted from fear of sterilization and assimilation of soldiers coming back from the front. The analysis concerns the film I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958). The author proves that science fiction films conceptualize social concerns, and accustom the viewers with atomic tension by means of appropriate narratives.

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