The science-fiction film

The science-fiction film

Sci-fi is a genre of films that are associated with fiction and scientific achievements and their possible implications for the future.

The foundation for the science-fiction genre was laid by literature: technology-loving authors such as Jules Verne and Wells expanded the travel and adventure literature of the 19th century with the science fiction component and significantly influenced the first science fiction films. Early on film pioneers had placed technical processes and their susceptibility at the center of their films, such as Louis Lumière and Ferdinand Zecca. Georges Méliès, who had already explored the subject in 1897 with Les Rayon's x-ray, created the Jules Verne-inspired film The Journey to the Moon in1902, which caused a worldwide sensation. James Searle Dawley turned in 1910 with Frankenstein the first film adaptation of the novel by Mary Shelley.

The first German SF film was The Tunnel by William Wauer from 1915; a utopia about a tunnel project between Europe and the USA. Another early German production was the six-part series Homunculus in 1916; shot by Otto Rippert, with a total length of over 400 minutes, which is only partially preserved. Other milestones of the early science fiction film were Holger-Madsen's The Sky Ship (1918), Yakov Protasanov's Aelita (1924) (after a science fiction novel by Alexei Tolstoy ) and Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and Woman in the Moon (1929) ). In 1936 Cosmic Journey was performed in the Soviet Union, which was created with the collaboration of Konstantin Ziolkowski; However, the film was sold for cultural-political reasons in the same year and performed again in the 1980s. In 1937, the film project began spacecraft 18, which was canceled due to the war.

The Rise of US Cinema 

The emergence of classic fantastic cinema was based on technical and political progress. The increase in productivity has produced energies focused on the conquest, discovery, and domination of "wild" lands. At the same time, the global economic crisis prevailed. Anxiety and nightmares took shape on the screen. As a result, so-called " mad scientist " films such as Frankenstein (1931) dominated. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) or The Invisible (1933). The belief in progress, which ignores all concerns, presents itself in King Kong and the white woman (1933). The archetypes of science fiction, horror and fantasy were created at this time and influence the science fiction film until today.

Better than any "socially critical" film, these terrifying narratives represent the imagination of an America undergoing an acute anxiety neurosis. These films respond to the fears of the time and increase them into hysteria. They form a kind of expropriation ritual in which the spectators participate in order to free themselves from their worries about everyday life - work, money, health, maintenance. In the 1950s, the American science-fiction cinema boomed with many films that reflected these fears, but also the paranoia of the McCarthy era. A few years later the first color films were made. In Metaluna 4 does not answer, Fight of the Worlds or Alert in Space, the filmmakers use the new possibilities to show magnificent, imaginative films.

With the serials came fast and cheap sequential films for the Saturday morning performances on the screen. The Phantom Empire (1935) was the first series to feature clear science fiction elements. Then began the triumphant advance of comic film films, their superheroes formed an ideal base for adventure stories. It all started in 1936 with Flash Gordon'ssequels. Other series acted by Buck Rogers, Captain Marvel and led in 1948 to the "superheroes of all superheroes", the series to Superman. Only the spread of television led to the end of the series. Because the series was straightforward stories of the eternal struggle (and victory) of good versus evil, and an adaptation of comics popular with children, science fiction drew more and more children and opened up a new audience. This was not disturbed by the continuous succession of successful ideas, so there were only invisible followers like The Invisible Returns, The Invisible Woman, The Invisible Agent and The Invisible takes revenge. At the latest after films like Frankenstein meets the wolf people and the comedy Abbott and Costello meets Frankenstein became a crisis. Films that had responded to the outbreak of World War II and kept a mirror up to the world did not exist.

The 1960s and 1970s: the race into space 

In the 1960s, science fiction returned to the public eye. The race to the moon between the USSR and the USA dominated the news, cinematically processed u. a. in The First Journey to the Moon (GB 1964, Director: Nathan Juran ) and Countdown: Start to the Moon (USA 1968, Director: Robert Altman ). The technical progress had an impact. The SF no longer played on distant planets but had to have some credibility. Almost only the Italian SF cinema, which flourished in the 1960s, was represented with a mixture of horror and SF: Planet of the Vampires (Italy / Spain 1965, directed by Mario Bava ), Orion-3000 - space of horror ( Italy 1966, directed by Antonio Margheriti ), demons from space (Italy 1967, directed by Antonio Margheriti) and others. Instead, many films tackled the latent threat of nuclear war ( Dr. Strange or: How I Learned to Love the Bomb, Target Moscow, Seven Days in May ), which had become highly relevant after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, and Kennedy's death, The fantastic journey leads into the interior of the body and 2001: Odyssey in space into the inside of the mind. The comic adaptation Barbarella (France / Italy 1968, directed by Roger Vadim ) played with the emerging in the 1960s sexual vivacity.

After the landing on the moon in 1969, a hitherto popular topic in SF film had become uninteresting. Once again, reality had caught up with the SF film. At the same time, the crisis of the studio system came through completely: New Hollywood was born. Expensive space adventures are no longer interesting, only " Planet of the Apes " became a typical Hollywood product with its four sequels, a TV-Realserie and a cartoon series.

Clockwork Orange is a shocking dystopia about rape and brutality. Andromeda - Deadly Dust from Space accurately traces the work of scientists, and Solaris focuses on human psychology. Silent in space and Soylent Green addressed the ongoing environmental destruction. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope changed that in 1977 and became a huge success.

The 1980s 

The SF films of the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan called the SDI Space Defense Space Star Wars, produced few truly innovative films. One of the exceptions is Blade Runner, which today is regarded as a milestone and as a tribute often stylistically and visually quoted in other films. The studios were often limited to continuations of known motifs. Action movies became Hollywood's most important money machine; That's how the action and horror series Predator and Alien came into being.

Most genre films were directed at a youthful audience that wanted and got effects and (cynical) humor. The films played on the Earth of the future, original space movies were rare. But they were science fiction movies in the true sense, the horror aspect came back 

A beginning tendency of the 1980er years is film series (continuations, less often also Prequels ). Starting with Star Wars (since 1977), these include, for example, the Star Trek films (from 1979), the Superman films (from 1978), the Terminator films (from 1984) and Back to the Future (1985, directed by Robert Zemeckis ) and his two sequels.

Films for an adult audience also emerged, though off the mainstream, but with serious disputes with issues that challenged the audience. The Day After, Letters of a Dead, Threads, The Rattlesnake, and the English Cartoon When the wind blows, the fictitious Third World War or the post-apocalyptic world was the subject of concern.

There was also Terry Gilliam, who made a film with Brazil, which dealt with known motifs of dystopia.

The 1990s 

The 1990s were dominated in SciFi mainly by blockbuster movies. With the advent of new trick techniques and realistic CGI effects, the genre has been given a new lease of life. Bold films like Independence Day (1996), Mars Attacks! (1996) or Men in Black (1997) present classic motifs of science fiction in a new guise, even partially parodying them. The trend towards sci-fi films for the whole family, triggered by Star Wars as early as the 1970s, gained widespread acceptance and is more the norm towards the end of the decade.

Due to the high prevalence of computers and the increasing digitization in the population, the representation and explanations of the sci-fi elements adapted more closely to real role models. For example, the film Jurassic Park uses scientifically accurate derivations to explain dinosaurs in our time. Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Matrix (1999) show a representation of artificial intelligence with a high relation to our computerized reality.

The genre is becoming increasingly action-heavy. Films such as Terminator 2 (1991), The Fifth Element (1997) or Lost in Space (1998) provide easy-to-digest sci-fi content in a variety of action movies for a broad audience.

There is a tendency in the filming of classic sci-fi literature by important authors. Total Recall (1990) and Starship Troopers (1997) are among the most important films. Also, video game adaptations such as Wing Commander (1999) appeared in SciFi in the 1990s for the first time.