Sci-Fi Ain’t Dead
Ridley Scott thinks Science Fiction movies are moribund.
He was the director of two of the most critically acclaimed science fiction films, but now Sir Ridley Scott believes that the genre is so tired and unoriginal that it may be dead.
At the Venice Film Festival for a special screening of his seminal noir thriller Blade Runner, Sir Ridley said that science fiction films were going the way the Western once had. “There’s nothing original. We’ve seen it all before. Been there. Done it,” he said. Asked to pick out examples, he said: “All of them. Yes, all of them.”
The flashy effects of recent block-busters, such as The Matrix, Independence Day and The War of the Worlds, may sell tickets, but Sir Ridley believes that none can beat Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Made at the height of the “space race” between the United States and the USSR, 2001 predicted a world of malevolent computers, routine space travel and extraterrestrial life. Kubrick had such a fastidious eye for detail, he employed Nasa experts in designing the spacecraft.
Sir Ridley said that 2001 was “the best of the best”, in use of lighting, special effects and atmosphere, adding that every sci-fi film since had imitated or referred to it. “There is an overreliance on special effects as well as weak storylines,” he said of modern sci-fi films.
The truth is, most movies are crap and SF movies follow that same Sturgeon’s Law. There have been so few good SF films, Scott’s argument is weak. I see what he means about the quality, but unlike Westerns, SF has an almost unlimited range of types of stories it can tell in an almost unlimited amount of environments. It’s really up to a good storyteller to break with the hack-like tendencies of the genre.
Director Sergio Leone reinvented the Western as a kind of mythic opera in the 60s and breathed new life into the genre. George Lucas helped breathe new life into the sci-fi film with Star Wars. Someone can do the same again.
Well, there’s Miyazaki’s “Nausicaa” and “Laputa”, and I’ve always been fond of the director’s cut of “The Abyss” ... and if we’re willing to consider humerous SF, what about “Buckaroo Banzai” and “Men In Black”? Then there were several episodes of “Babylon 5” that represent some of the best SF ever to hit TV… So I think Scott’s off-base, because there certainly were problems with BOTH “Alien” and “Bladerunner” that, since HE was at the helm, are his fault. I say neener neener to him!
Posted by on 08/30 at 10:03 AM
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