key concepts by Louisa Rose

Key words for science fiction film

Synergy-  the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects

Convergence - Media convergence is the merging of mass communication outlets – print, television, radio, the Internet along with portable and interactive technologies through various digital media platforms

B movie - a low-budget film of inferior quality made for use as a supporting feature in a cinema programme

Ontological –   it refers to the subject of existence and what it means to be human

Dystopia- A dystopia is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening

Intertextuality - Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. Intertextual figures include: allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody

Iconography-  Iconography is an important aspect of genre. We expect to see certain objects on screen when we see a particular genre, for example, in a Western, dusty lonely roads, saloon bars, cowboy hats and horses, jails, sheriffs badges, guns, etc..

 Mise- en scene - the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play. the setting or surroundings of an event.

 

Binary opposites- A binary opposition (also binary system) is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Binary opposition is the system by which, in language and thought, two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another.

 Ideology- a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.

the history of science fiction film

History of science fiction (1920's-2000's)
Instead, the decade saw the rise of film serials: low-budget, quickly-produced shorts depicting futuristic, heroic adventures. action, melodramatic plots, and gadgetry. Echoes of this style can still be seen in science fiction and action films today, as well as in the various James Bond films. Some of the most popular of the era were the various Flash Gordon films, the exploits of Buck Rogers, and others, such as the quasi-science fiction 1920s: Meanwhile, in Europe, the 1920s displayed a distinct difference from American cinema. European film-makers began to use the genre for prediction and social commentary. In Russia, the film Aelita discussed social revolution in the context of a voyage to Mars. In Germany, one of the most important pioneers of science fiction was the Expressionist Fritz Lang. His 1927 film Metropolis was the most expensive film ever released up to that point. Set in the year 2026, it included elements such as an autonomous robot, a mad scientist, a dystopian society, and elaborate futuristic sets. His 1929 work Frau im Mond, or Woman In The Moon, came as the silent film era was coming to a close, and notably introduced the idea of counting down the time to a rocket launch. reluctant to finance the expensive futuristic sets necessary for this type of film. Although the 1936 British film Things to Come, written by H. G. Wells, projected the world 100 years into the future and forecasted the advent of World War II, it too was a box-office flop, and films with serious speculation and visual spectacle of the future would largely disappear until the 1950s.

1930s and 1940’s: Movies during the 1930s were largely impacted by the advent of sound and dialogue, and by the effects of the Great Depression that began in 1929. Audiences began to pursue films with more escapist themes, leading to a decline in serious speculative films. After the failure of the big-budget 1930 American film Just Imagine, studios were Dick Tracy. They continued to use science fiction elements like space travel, high-tech gadgets, plots for world domination, and mad scientists.

Other elements of science fiction were carried into the burgeoning horror genre, driven by the massive success of the Universal Studios' Frankenstein and its sequel Bride of Frankenstein. Many Universal Horror films, such as The Invisible Man and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde prominently featured mad scientists and experiments gone wrong, as did other monster movies like The Vampire Bat, Doctor X, and Dr. Cyclops.

Sequels to successful horror films continued into World War II, and the 1940s also saw the development of patriotic superhero serials like Fleischer Studio's animated Superman short subjects that often doubled as war propaganda. However, science fiction as an independent genre lay mostly dormant throughout the war.

1950s: Two events at the end of World War II had major impacts on the science fiction genre. The development of the atomic bomb increased interest in science, as well as anxiety about the possible apocalyptic effects of a nuclear war. The period also saw the beginning of the Cold War, and widespread Communist paranoia in the United States. These led to a major increase in the number of sci-fi films being created throughout the 1950s, and creating a Golden Age of Science Fiction that matched the one taking place in literature

One of the earlier and most important films of the era was 1950's widely publicized Destination Moon. It follows a nuclear-powered rocketship carrying four men to the moon, against a background of competition against the Soviets. With a script co-written by Robert A. Heinlein and astronomical sets by renowned space artist Chesley Bonestell, the film was a commercial and artistic success, and it brought about more studio financing of science fiction film. The producer of Destination Moon was notably George Pal who also helped create When Worlds Collide, The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and the pseudo-documentary of manned space exploration Conquest of Space. Although Conquest of Space was a commercial failure that set back Pal's career, the other four each won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, which demonstrated the increased technical excellence and critical recognition of the genre.

 1960s: The era of manned trips to the Moon saw a resurgence of interest in the science fiction film in the 1970s. Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, both released in 1977, contained a mystical element reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The space discoveries of the 1970s created a growing sense of marvel about the universe that was reflected in these films.

However, the early 1970s also saw the continued theme of paranoia, with humanity under threat from ecological or technological adversaries of its own creation. Notable films of this period included Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange 1971 (man vs. brainwashing), THX 1138 1971 (man vs. the state), Silent Running1972 (ecology), the sequels to Planet of the Apes (man vs. evolution), and Westworld 1973 (man vs. robot).

The history of science fiction films parallels that of the motion picture industry as a whole, although it took several decades before the genre was taken seriously. Since the 1960s, major science fiction films have succeeded in pulling in large audience shares, and films of this genre have become a regular staple of the film industry. Science fiction films have led the way in special effects technology, and have also been used as a vehicle for social commentary.

Following the huge success of Star Wars, science fiction became bankable again and each major studio rushed into production their available projects. As a direct result, the Star Trek Television series was reborn as a film franchise that continued through the 1980s and 1990s.

Thanks to the Star Wars 1977 and Star Trek 1979 franchises, escapism became the dominant form of science fiction film through the 1980s. The big budget adaptations of Frank Herbert's Dune 1984 and Arthur C. Clarke's sequel to 2001, 2010 in 1984, were box office duds that dissuaded producers from investing in science fiction literary properties.

The emergence of the world wide web and the cyberpunk genre during the 1990s spawned several Internet-themed films. Both The Lawnmower Man (1992) and Virtuosity (1995) dealt with threats to the network from a human-computer interface. Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and Total Recall (1990) had the memories of their main actors modified by a similar interface, and The Matrix (1999) created a machine-run virtual prison for humanity. The internet also provided a ready medium for film fandom, who could more directly support (or criticize) such media franchise film series as Star Trek and Star Wars.

Disaster film remained popular, with themes updated to reflect recent influences. Both Armageddon (1998) and Deep Impact (1998) used the threat of a massive impact with the earth. Independence Day (1996 in film) recycled the 1950s alien invasion films, with rapacious, all-consuming aliens. Advances in genetic science were also featured in the Jurassic Park (1993) and the slow-paced Gattaca (1997).

As the decade progressed, computers played an increasingly important role in both the addition of special effects and the production of film

Oddly, in the 2000s, Science fiction films seemed to turn away from space travel, and fantasy predominated. Except for Star Trek and Star Wars films, the only films set off Earth that appeared in the first half of the 2000s were Serenity, Titan A.E., and the poorly received Mission to Mars and Red Planet. On the other hand, fantasy and superhero films abounded, as did earthbound SF such as the Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions.