The Sci-Fi List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[therewillbeblus]

That said my number anime pick for the list is without question FLCL which I’m tempted to put at number one overall. It plays a bit like Tashlin tasked with making a coming of age story set to the best pop rock Japan can provide. Seriously, the soundtrack alone should earn it a place on everyone’s list.

I liked FLCL quite a bit, though not as a piece of sci-fi. Even though there are scientific ideas at play, they loom in the background and serve as dressing for the boundary-pushing unraveling of the comfort of one's milieu that is at the forefront of the thematic intentions. I saw these operating as more of a fantasy-externalization, detailing rather than carrying significance on their own face-value mechanics. The closest cousin to this seems to be Scott Pilgrim, operating in diverse arrays of experimental projections of adolescence and commentaries on modern life. I agree with the Tashlin comparisons, and would extend that to Dante at his most hyperactive (and the soundtrack is killer), but the fine line in genre-categorization for me is how the sci-fi is used, and here it feels sourced in the fantastical rather than the specificity of a concept repurposed to drive home the aims stemming from said concept.

I'm curious to hear a defense that might challenge how I'm overlooking the filmmakers' utilization of the iconography for topical relevance, but as it stands if I can't bring myself to vote for Scott Pilgrim for this list, this'll likely be sidelined with it. Thanks for the rec though, I really enjoyed this a lot.

[knives]

I don’t really disagree either with the Scott Pilgrim comparison nor the difficulty of categorization. It feels sci-fi to me, but that’s 100% arbitrary. Not voting for it on those lines strikes me as the only acceptable reason not to.

To explain my thought process a little is that FLCL uses the iconography of sci-fi, particularly of the anime variety for its fantasies and explains them using aliens and physics rather than magic and wizards. I’m sort of doing a calculus against Discworld which is purely fantasy despite also the mundane world building at work. It’s certainly not hard sci-fi though.

It’s also I think a great use of that iconography to visualize its themes of self definition. Naota as part of growing up is having trouble figuring who he is. The shadow of his brother is the most obvious figure in this, leading to the OVA to also be a great sports film, but he has to learn how not to define himself against all of the relationships in his life particularly with women with the agent a warning of a toxic future if he doesn’t self actualIze on healthy terms.

The sci-fi stuff because representative of that. Haruko is literally an alien he can’t understand despite wanting a relationship like how many young boys feel when they approach adolescence. The portal to another universe is filled with metaphor. A few are how he feels used by others as if he is just a way station for others and also how his thoughts don’t feel under his control and are just leaking out like a portal, this is especially with the spider classroom episode. That these things are largely mechs and guitars shows his retention of boyhood making it so that self actualization doesn’t necessitate self deletion.

[Michael Kerpan]

Other highly worthwhile science fiction anime (IMHO)

Girls Last Tour -- the last 2 girls in the world (maybe ultimately the last 2 humans) -- has everyone else died or maybe other survivors have "abandoned ship" and gone elsewhere. They explore abandoned landscapes , moving ever upwards. Sort of like Becket -- with cute (and mobile) young women. Visually striking (and often aurally impressive as well).

Serial Experiment Lain -- Perhaps one of the earliest (and most interesting) explorations of the web-connected world. Visually impressive -- with great character designs by Yoshitoshi Abe. Other Abe-connected science fiction anime -- the often silly (but lovely and moving at its best) Niea_7 and the visually stunning dystopian, end of the world Texhnolyze (very violent and grim). Abe's best project so far, Haibane Renmei (written and visually designed by him) is Haibane Renmei -- but it is more fantasy-like (inspired, in parts, by Kore'eda's After Life and Murakami's Hard-boiled Wonderland and End of the World).

[therewillbeblus]

It’s also I think a great use of that iconography to visualize its themes of self definition. Naota as part of growing up is having trouble figuring who he is. The shadow of his brother is the most obvious figure in this, leading to the OVA to also be a great sports film, but he has to learn how not to define himself against all of the relationships in his life particularly with women with the agent a warning of a toxic future if he doesn’t self actualIze on healthy terms.

The sci-fi stuff because representative of that. Haruko is literally an alien he can’t understand despite wanting a relationship like how many young boys feel when they approach adolescence. The portal to another universe is filled with metaphor. A few are how he feels used by others as if he is just a way station for others and also how his thoughts don’t feel under his control and are just leaking out like a portal, this is especially with the spider classroom episode. That these things are largely mechs and guitars shows his retention of boyhood making it so that self actualization doesn’t necessitate self deletion.

This explanation is in line with my impressions, but said very well and more clarified than my own nebulous perception of a mess of paint thrown on me (not a criticism at all!) though that's more attributed to still processing what I've just seen. I agree it's arbitrary and I'm sure I'll have stuff on my list that uses sci-fi in a similarly flexible way that will cause others to scratch their heads. Maybe I'll revisit before submissions and come around. Either way, it's really great.

[knives]

Yeah, I’ve seen the series at least a half dozen times. That gives a lot of opportunity to think about it.

[movielocke]

Does anyone remember what the sci-fi movie was from the last couple years about teens on socialmedia getting caught in a sadistic socialmedia game where they to do increasingly escalating shit for likes?

[swo17]

Nerve

[therewillbeblus]

Nerve is terrific, and domino and colin wrote up some great thoughts in its dedicated thread. Yet another list-worthy qualifying film I left off my preliminary list..

I finally got around to watching the original Ghost in the Shell, which I liked but didn't love as much as the masses. The film amusingly took Evangelion's climax of oneness, merging all the complex grey space of life into a simplified form, and applied it to non-gender-binary identity transcending categorization- but the rest of the film's pleasures were primarily conceptual rather than drawn from an alluring narrative. I realize that this one-line reading is an overgeneralization, but I don't feel equipped to go down the philosophical rabbit hole on this one just yet. I am planning to watch the live-action version soon to compare, and so we'll see if that brings about more intricate assessments on their respective themes.

[knives]

The live action film brings it a bit into Cloud Atlas territory in a scene clearly inspired from Robocop

[knives]

I hope everyone’s obligated Elle Fanning slot is dedicated to John Cameron Mitchell’s adorable How to Talk to Girl’s at Parties. Despite a group of male leads that could have been incredibly annoying Mitchell’s sense of fun make them fun to hang out with as he has Fanning and the other ladies be genuinely alien in a way that really gets at the nervousness the boys represent while also having them be genuinely interesting so that the desire to get to know them melds with the boys’ curiosity.

There’s just this child like fun to the film even as characters accidentally get involved with an intergalactic orgy.

[therewillbeblus]

Has she really been in that many sci-fi movies? The obvious vote goes to Super 8 though I'm not really counting a full palette as I look over her oeuvre. This is one that's always left hanging on my to-see list, so I'll check it out.

Scanning through her filmography again I see she was in The Nines which I remember being excited for in production way back after really enjoying John August's Go, but never got around to seeing it. Can anyone recommend it, or scare me off?

[knives]

I just meant all the genre lists are obligated to feature Fanning.

[therewillbeblus]

Oh, well that's a fact. Except I didn't leave room for Twixt or The Neon Demon for my horror ballot, so my list probably shouldn't have counted.

[knives]

That’s true. I guess you’ll have to pay the fine by voting for two now.

[therewillbeblus]

I better fall in love with How to Talk to Girl’s at Parties then, unless 20th Century Women counts for being out-of-this-world Amazing.

[knives]

It is literally impossible not to fall in love with so no worries. Maybe the best movie released by A24.

[therewillbeblus]

That hyperbole belongs in a sci-fi movie

[knives]

It’s well deserved hyperbole if nothing else. There’s a scene about halfway through that I’m still recovering from its starry delight.

[senseabove]

I guess I need to revisit HtTtGaP. I saw it at its US premiere during the SFFILM fest with JCM in person and was... less enthusiastic, but maybe I just had festival high hopes.

[domino harvey]

That abbreviation seems like more work than just typing out the title!

[bottled spider]

I hadn't heard of it till now, but How to Talk to Girls at Parties has garnered such overwhelmingly negative response from the people I follow on Letterboxd (plus everybody else on Letterboxd?) I'm sorely tempted to watch it.

[senseabove]

My left pinky is actually in the Guinness Book of World Records now thanks to it.

[knives]

That abbreviation seems like more work than just typing out the title!

It really does look painful.

I can't imagine a worse setting for this film then a festival since it needs an intimacy that one can't provide. The movie really is small scale in a lot of ways and asks you to trust in it in order to love it. In a lot of ways just saying it's an amalgamation of Gaiman in autobiographical mode and Mitchell using the same vibes as Short Bus gives the best sense of what you're getting. The movie is about discovery and I think the side plot with Vic and Stella is essential to getting at what the film achieves. At first he promotes himself as a daring punk ready for discovery, but in truth he only wants discovery within the confines of his comfort. Stella is a discovery that makes him question himself which is the hardest kind. Over the film he quietly develops until he's ready for a truly new discovery in the form of gender oblivious sex. This is a sincerely horny sex comedy which is such a rare thing as to deserve being treasured.

What Sharp and Fanning represent for themselves is a different sort of discovery yet no less terrifying. It's a sort of domesticity that goes against the values they've placed upon themselves thanks to their histories in the field. It's important that the moment Sharp is the most distressed about in the film is not only his mum being a typical mother, vaseline, but that Fanning goes along with it having the time of her life. The musical climax to their relationship being assured is a real mind meld that shows trust in their mutual discovery via sex and talking, I sort of love how Fanning dismisses sex in favor of a boring Saturday, as they now deal with discovering how they work together in the world. This is ultimately a very sweet tribute to the act of forming relationships.

[zedz]

As a TV series it doesn't qualify for this list, but fans of ridiculously complicated time travel narratives should check out the German series Dark. It has a bit of a Twin Peaks vibe, without the goofiness and more heavily invested in its central mystery / narrative, but much of the fun comes from how it takes a blowtorch to any number of time travel conventions, such as the butterfly effect and the prohibition on coexistence, and goes full steam ahead down every narrative rabbit hole it can find. I'm near the end of the second series and the convolutions are so intricate that I keep waiting for everything to topple into "making stuff up just to get us out of the quicksand of our cleverness" territory. So far, so good, but there's still plenty of opportunity for a complete shambles!

Some mild, general spoilers to give you an idea of what makes this show interesting:

Spoiler

Unlike most time travel tales, where the fact of time travel is a dark secret, the characters here are blabbermouths, and more and more people not only get clued into the secret, but start zooming back and forth in time willy-nilly, with no regard for messing with 'history'.

As for the butterfly effect, the problem in this tale is that various people desperately want to change history, but seem unable to do so, and whatever intervention they attempt (some of them extraordinarily radical) just seems to play in to an extremely complicated predetermined chain of cause and effect.

If you've ever wanted to see a character travel 66 years into the past just to say "fuck you" to somebody, here's your chance!

Season 1 Trailer

[therewillbeblus]

All of my friends love this show, but I couldn't through the first season. I should really give it another shot one of these days since I have yet to meet a fellow dissenting voice (though it's often aptly compared to Stranger Things, which I really can't stand outside of the first season). For those that do check it out, for the love of God do not watch the English-dubbed version unless you want a good laugh at the potentially-worst dubbing I've ever heard (I only tried it out after receiving the same advice from my friends and I can attest to its awfulness- that's one way to disengage an audience!)