Yeah exactly. I’m excited for this genre project, since it’s arguably more versatile than horror on what constitutes a “science fiction” film. Darko Suvin’s reading that necessitates a hypothesis to exist, and the process of “cognitive estrangement” to occur rather than dressing a normalized story up in a different world, is fascinating but I agree there is room for error. I think a work that imagines our world exaggerated into identity-diffused artifice like
Batman Returns could be considered science-fiction under these parameters though. The presence of a “novum” that follows a logic, no matter how absurd, rather than fantasy-based imagination, is key.
Batman Returns is an apparent fantasy that can be argued to be a deteriorating version of our society (plus, c’mon, Penguin alone qualifies it), as is
Planet Terror- an absolutely absurd imaginative idea that nevertheless finds itself rooted in a novum.
I won’t be sticking to any one theorist here, but thinking in these terms or defining the core principles of the genre to be more philosophically provocative in essence, may cause me to place something like
Solaris above
2001, for example. I plan to place a few genre blends that I intentionally left off the horror list here, including both
Detention and
Happy Death Day 2U, both of which will be scraping onto this one for their pulsating creativity and the undiluted fun they have with the genre.
Detention can be argued as a number of diverse genres, but its literal science fiction plot components don’t hold a candle next to its self-reflexive artifice. Suvin’s categorization works based on the hypotheses presented regarding social dynamics and generational judgments, using cinema as a magic ball, or time machine, to channel perspectives. The film imagines a film similar to our world, but actually a skewed version of it according to the dream logic or wish fulfillment of gen xers, using science fiction and horror elements to dress up the absurdities in genre conventions to acknowledge the egocentric facade.
Happy Death Day’s sequel is still better than the original, and struck me as powerful on a revisit in how heavily the choice between realities weighs on our protagonist, in between bouts of loose playfulness. Similarly, Fukunaga's
Maniac will definitely make a strong appearance (my linked writeup is all spoilers, but if you haven’t seen it yet you should get on that without reading too much up on it). Its fantasy sequences remind one of Gondry’s
Eternal Sunshine but this is all window dressing next to the true motive behind its application of genre signifiers; the cumulative impact of which reveals the journey to be one of the most honest depictions of the therapeutic process on film. Period.
Planet Terror on the surface may appear to be more of a horror/action/comedy, but the film treats its zombie premise as a cartoonish speculation rooted in a gradual burn of science-gone-awry before eruption. The presentation’s energy feels more in step with the genre’s welcome immersion of an audience into its world with adventurous awe, rather than involving us in fear-inducing trauma responses. I’ll surely vote for it as the most entertaining science-fiction movie I can think of offhand, to counter the intellectual-extractions that’ll feature heavily on my list.
Also, I’ve now seen
Ad Astra a third time and this one just gets better and better. I don’t love Gray’s entire filmography (though he hasn’t made a wrong turn since his 2008 masterpiece), but he’s always struck me as an interesting filmmaker who makes deceptively shallow films, using thematically straightforward (or rather, accessible) aims to elicit a versatility of emotion, which unveils a depth of experience making his films anything but simple. While some of his work hit me like a ton of bricks immediately (
Two Lovers, The Immigrant) others, like this and
The Lost City of Z, build upon revisits and time reflecting between them. Reading back through the film’s dedicated thread, it’s interesting to track how what I perceived to be imperfect and thin metaphors transformed into a near-perfect blend of literal and allegorical therapy and self-discovery through addressing personal and social history, emerging from emotional suppression. I’ve completely changed my feelings on this one, yet not my thoughts so much pertaining to its meaning. It’s just that the meaning has finally sunk in (James Gray’s commentary helps flesh them out though). As opposed to Brian C, who I agree the most along with Sausage regarding the film’s strategy, this one is having the opposite effect to
Gravity, which did not grow on me and instead petered out. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Gray film made it into my top ten, I’m so high on it right now. It’s also one of, if not his very best, and the most recent glaring example of the rewards of critical re-evaluation.
I honestly can’t think of a science fiction film I love more at the moment- hitting that balance of hard science and its psychological and existential plights in figurative symbolism and authentic identity exploration. Or, as James Gray puts it, the idea that we are alone in the universe is a novel platform to trigger an existential crisis for a man’s emotional awakening; about how one’s solitude is painful but emotionally ‘safe’- “the more connections we have the greater the risk” as Gray says in the
To The Stars disc supplement; but how strength comes from the act of being vulnerable, as Pitt says in another supplement. Also, the lack of catharsis- something Gray doesn’t believe in- isn’t the answer, but instead the ability to sit with it is. So tremendously therapeutic, regardless of how on-the-nose you think it is. We can’t keep looking outward when we need to be looking inward. Pitt again says of these moments alone in the dark to be “the devolving of the psyche which can either lead to a death or a resurrection.” These readings really get at what I love most about the genre.
Speaking of
Gravity, a recent third revisit posed the same issues as my second, though it may still make my list. To give some context, my initial viewing of this film is probably the greatest theatre experience of my life- IMAX 3D (not usually a fan, but wow, the asteroid debris threatening my very life beats any rollercoaster or VR experience x100)- completely wrecked with anxiety. This is what the theatre experience was designed for, a complete transportation into the cinema. After we left the theatre, my buddy declared, “that debris should win Best Supporting Actor” which is somehow a decent point. Flash forward, this was the first blu-ray I purchased, eager to show an ex, and the downgrade was crushing as I felt
nothing akin to my theatrical viewing. So now, years later, with low expectations it was about the same- impressive but dull next to the medium it was designed for. If there’s one movie that should be re-released into theatres every year (or better yet, sell it to Universal Studios and just play it in an IMAX theatre as a fucking ride), it’s this one. Shoulda never watched it a second time, it probably would’ve come in at the top of this list.
I'm also glad that anthology series count, since it'll make the formation of a top fifty a challenge, and force me to finally dig into season two of the original
Outer Limits, watch the 90s revival, and go back to revisit
The Twilight Zone. I won't be surprised if five or so
Black Mirror eps wind up on my final list.
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