☆ ★ Science Fiction ★ ☆

(( Backlogged from 18th November))

Science Fiction

Science fiction is a genre that embraces advances in cinematics like no other.
Once an acquired taste in film, our new technology has allowed Scifi to leap into the limelight as a staple of cinema.


(A poster for the original 'War of the Worlds' (1898) and concept art for the remake (2005))

Scifi is a child of imagination and so can only be enhanced by new technology (also a child of imagination) - the two go hand in hand, so much so that science fiction often inspires advances in technology. Interestingly, many science fiction films also reflect a fear for that technology.

Science fiction was at first a strange creature, with 'La Voyage Dans La Lune' (1902) (see my first post) generally considered to be the first film in the genre. Other early films are equally experimental including 'Metropolis' (1927);

(trailer of the digitally remastered Metropolis)

It features the first robot ever to be shown in a feature film and is considered by many the 'Bladerunnner of its time'. There's something slightly disturbing and at times frightening about early scifi films whereas now, even though they are more realistic to look at, many of them seem more mellow.

(a remake of Metropolis from 2001)

The film was remade and released in 2001 with a combination of 2D and 3D animation. The film was far more beautiful to look at but retained its disturbing nature. This may be because the storyline is set in the year 2000 and is at times reflects our fears of the near future.
Traditional animation has embraced the scifi genre in the same way that CGI has and I find the mixture of an older media with a futuristic genre can be just as entertaining as a CGI feature.


(concept art for the 2009 Star Trek film)