History of the science fiction film

History of the science fiction film

The history of science fiction film is largely the same as the history of cinematography. Already in 1895, a short science fiction film was made in France and until 1930 most films in this genre came from Europe. Since the 1960s, the science fiction film genre has been taken seriously as a fully-fledged film genre and since the 1970s, films in this genre are often also financially successful.

Early movies 

Science fiction films appeared early in film history. The first known science fiction film dates from 1895 and is called Charcuterie Méchanique. It is a short film by the Frenchman Louis Lumière, in which an automatic machine converts a pig into bacon and sausages. The 1-minute lost film Gugusse et l'automate from 1897 by Georges Méliès showed a mechanical man. The first use of the split screen dates from 1901; Ferdinand Zecca 's á la conquête de l'air shows a man flying over Paris on a flying machine. In 1902, Georges Méliès made Le voyage dans la lune (8 to 14 minutes, depending on the film speed), inspired by Jules Verne 's book From Earth to the Moon. In 1911, the Pathé brothers made the 13-minute film A Hundred Years Later, set in 2011. The world is ruled by women, who are literally wearing trousers, while men have no voting rights and are obliged to wear a dress. In 1912, Méliès made the more than half-hour adventure film with science fiction elements con la conquête du pôle.

Long feature films 

In 1916, the American 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (105 min.) Appeared, also after a book by Verne ( Twenty thousand miles under the sea ). And in 1924 the Russian Aelita came out. A few years later, the Metropolis masterpiece was published in Germany ( Fritz Lang, 1927). The 1930s produced by far the best film adaptation (1931) of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and also one of the first "lost world" films: Lost Horizon by Frank Capra from 1936. In America, the so-called "serials" were popular at this time: a whole series of consecutive films of which a new volume was released every week. A well-known example of this is the Flash Gordon Serial. The 40s brought little news: lots of monster and horror movies but hardly real science fiction. The only significant film of this decade is Dr. Cyclops from 1940, an early color film.

Some well-known science fiction films were made in the 1950s, The Day the Earth Stood Still and When Worlds Collide in 1951, The Came from Outer Space and The War of the Worlds in 1953 and Forbidden Planet in 1956. In Japan, in 1954 the first part of the still-running film series Godzilla (Japanese: ラ ジ ラ Gojira) was made. Ray Harryhausen also started this time with his brilliant stop-motion effects in films such as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Earth vs.. the Flying Saucers (1956) and 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957).

The science fiction film is growing up 

After decades of playing the safe, Hollywood finally began to make intelligent, mature science-fiction films in the 1960s, of which the black-gold satirical Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and 2001: A Space Odyssey is the most striking exponents. Other striking films from this period are the French neo-noir film Alphaville, Une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution, the British Fahrenheit 451 and the exuberant, campy Barbarella with its psychedelic design. The British SF television series Doctor Who and the American series Star Trek also date from the 1960s.

the seventies brought George Lucas ' first film THX 1138 and the first major blockbusters in the SF genre: Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Andromeda Strain (1971), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Solaris (1972), Westworld (1973), Dark Star (1974), Battlestar Galactica (1978), Alien (1979), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and Mad Max (1979).

The following years, many sequels of films from the 1970s were made, including 5 Star Wars films, 9 Star Trek films and 4 Alien films. A film from the Flash Gordon serial from the 1930s was also made: Flash Gordon. Two very successful SF films were released in 1982: the tech-noir film Blade Runner and the blockbuster ET the Extra-Terrestrial. That same year Tron was released: one of the very first films that made intensive use of computer-generated images. The light-hearted Back to the Future trilogy was a success, but David Lynch ' Dune and the sequel to 2001, 2010: The Year We Make Contact were costly misses. New, successful film series started with the RoboCop and The Terminator films.

In Japan, the science fiction animated films became increasingly successful: the films Akira and Ghost in the Shell became worldwide successes, as did the television series Dragonball and Mobile Suit Gundam. The Russian Kin-Dza-Dza! , the Australian The Quiet Earth, British Brazil, and the Spanish Acción Mutante were modest successes but were highly valued.

The 90s brought a flood of new science fiction films and series, large studio productions such as Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall (1990), Independence Day (1996), Starship Troopers (1997) and Armageddon(1998), but also surprising films such as Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys ( 1995), the Canadian horror science fiction movie Cube (1997) and the flopped but well-appreciated Gattaca (1997). In 1999 the first part of the beautifully designed film series The Matrix was released. That same year George Lucas released the long-awaited first part of the second Star Wars trilogy Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

The 21st century brought many new science fiction films: Steven Spielberg directed the well-received films AI: Artificial Intelligence and Minority Report. A striking film was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a romantic science fiction film. In addition, a great many film versions of other media have been released in recent years, such as comics (X-Men, Hulk and Fantastic Four ), television series ( Æon Flux, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Serenity and Transformers ) and computer games ( Wing Commander, Resident Evil )