Science Fiction
Science fiction, also known as sci-fi, is a very wide, broad genre of fiction that deals with the impact of science or technology that usually takes place in a futuristic and unrealistic setting. The purpose of science fiction is to explore the consequences of such differences and to see worlds in which we do not live in. The settings for science fiction are often contrary to known reality, but the majority of science relies on a considerable degree of suspension of disbelief provided by scientific elements to various fictional elements. Many common settings in science fiction films involve a setting in the future, usually in alternative timelines, that is very different from life today. Other common settings for these films take place in outer space or a world involving aliens. More common sci-fi plots involve time travel, robots, or dystopias. As science fiction entered popular culture, writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech “B-movies” and with low quality. Science fiction stories have been used for many years. It dates back to the second century where science fiction literature can be seen in Lucian’s True History. One famous sci-fi author, Jules Verne, wrote A Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea that were both later made into films. Science fiction films have been around since the early 1900s before film genres were established. These films appeared very early in the silent film era before there were movie stars. In 1902, Georges Melies released La Voyage dans la Lune, the best-known early science fiction film. It portrayed a journey to the Moon in a spacecraft launched by a powerful gun. The 1920s saw a distinct difference between American and European science fiction. One very sci-fi film during the 1920s was Metropolis (1926). The 1970s was the era of manned trips to the Moon and brought back a resurgence of interest in the science fiction genre. The first Star Wars film and Close Encounters of the Third Kind were both released in 1977. These were both very popular films back in the 70s and even today and these films helped bring in new science fiction lovers. One very common plot for science fiction movies is the use of time travel. One of the most famous is H.G. Wells’s 1895 novel The Time Machine that was also later made into a film. My favorite time travel films are the Back to the Future movies that were directed by Robert Zemeckis and starred Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. These films are about a teenager and an old genius named Doc Brown who invents time travel by reaching 88 miles per hour in the famous DeLorean. One very famous sci-fi director is H.G. Wells. He is famous for science fiction works such as The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man and many more. My personal favorite H.G. Wells film is the present day War of the Worlds. It is about a family who fights for survival as Earth is invaded by alien tripod fighting machines. After a dry period during the war years, science fiction films took off during what has been dubbed "the Golden Age of Science Fiction Films," although many of the 50s exploitative, second-rate sci-fi flicks had corny dialogue, poor screenplays, bad acting, and amateurish production values. In response to a growing interest in rocketry and space exploration, feature-length space travel films gained popularity in the early 1950s, pioneered by two 1950 films. Suddenly, science-fiction films were viewed as financially profitable and audiences flocked to the theatres and craved more. Quickly, there were many cheap, low-budget imitators, such as Monogram's and director Lesley Selander's Flight to Mars (1951) about a manned space-flight in the year 2000 to the Red Planet of Mars. The Mars sequences were filmed in washed-out two-color cinecolor [this was the first science fiction film made with color]. After admiring and being inspired by the ground-breaking work of Willis H. O'Brien in King Kong (1933) and the work of special-effects animator George Pal in the 1940s, Ray Harryhausen was able to work on Mighty Joe Young (1949), one of O'Brien's final projects (for which O'Brien won a Best Visual Effects Oscar) although Harryhausen wasn't really credited for most of the work. Besides the films already mentioned in the 1950s, master of stop-motion animation Ray Harryhausen (often teamed with long-time producer Charles Schneer) turned to mythologically-tainted science-fiction films (including three Sinbad films) to display his painstaking, classic craft of special effects - animated frame-by-frame, until the special effects revolution ushered in by Star Wars (1977) swept through the industry. Harryhausen, who never received an Oscar nomination, did receive the Gordon E. Sawyer Honorary Academy Award in 1992. I can personally say that science-fiction is my favorite genre because anything is possible in the science-fiction world and possibilities are endless.
Sources Cited:
http://www.filmsite.org/sci-fifilms.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction
