Genre:
Sci-fi
Genre conventions – content:
Scientific fiction- or sci-fi for short- films are fantastical imaginings of worlds, new or old, in ways that incorporate scientific advancements. Main staples of the sci-fi genre are advanced technology, artificial intelligence, and strict, or dystopian-like societies. They are often set in brilliant cityscapes, or spaceships, and may include elements of space or time travel. The narratives typically surround a hero character who is more often than not very arrogant or naïve, and through the story, gets beaten down and ultimately becomes a stronger and fiercer character. They are matched by antagonists that represent the evil side of all of the new technology, like robots, aliens, or governments that have profited off of this new society. The antagonists usually have cronies or henchmen to do their work, and they’re portrayed as an all-powerful godlike figure, like the robots in the matrix. The narrative typically follows a journey of some sort that ultimately culminates in saving humankind from death or destruction, usually at the hands of the tech they created. Other narratives follow a single character as they fight to save themselves from some tech-infused horror, a representation of the last of humanity. There are often binary representations of good and evil, and these films tend to be a commentary of humanities most basic conventions, set in a hypercomplex society. Sci-fi films often have themes of dystopic futures- with misuse of technology causing man’s downfall, commentary on social issues like ecological destruction, war, racism, and anxiety about humanity’s future.
Genre conventions – production techniques
Stylistically, sci-fi films place a massive emphasis on CGI and lavish costuming in order to portray their futuristic surroundings. Costumes include a lot of metal, helmets, tight clothing, and body modifications, like a bionic eye or flashy blue metal arm. Sci-Fi films also often include lots of explosions, shootouts and crashes to bring in an element of action. They are also known to use establishing shots at the beginnings of the film to show the futuristic city or spaceship, usually constructed with CGI. In terms of set design, while most of it is CGI, a lot of the physical components include electronic equipment, neon lighting, silver accents, etc. Sci-Fi films often use fast panning and tracking shots to follow the action and create tension. At times, they also employ Horror genre tropes and conventions to create fear and suspense. Audio-wise, most sci-fi films include a fast-paced soundtrack, mixing electronically produced pieces with loud booming songs, like in Thor Ragnarok, where songs like Led Zeppelins Immigrant Song to set the mood.
Institutional conventions – how is genre marketed
Sci-fi films use a multitude of different marketing techniques, but the most notable is the big stunt. When Cloverfield first began marketing, they created a massive publicity stunt using myspace, fake news articles and other sources to create a viral sensation online, and bring people in to watch the movie. Another example of a publicity stunt is District 9's usage of public signs on benches, in bathrooms, on doors and practically everywhere that exclaim this area was for human's only, a plot point from the movie, and told them to report any alien sightings, another plot point. Another marketing technique for sci-fi films is the good vs. evil trailer, where the trailer immediately sets up the main conflict of the movie with a good vs. evil dichotomy. An example of this is the recent Star Wars movie, where the trailer showcased Rey and Kylo's fights in the movie and set up their struggle.
Film/magazine sample #1 – Blade Runner (1982)
Blade Runner is a classic sci-fi film, combining a futuristic cityscape, advanced AI and strangely enough, film noir elements to create a masterful commentary on questions like "What does it mean to be human?" "What is reality?" "What is the difference between real memories and artificial memories?" "How does our environment affect us?" "What are the moral issues we face in the creation of artificial people?". The movie follows Harrison Ford’s Deckard, a detective on the Blade Runner squad in 2019’s Los Angles, tasked with the job of hunting down illegal “replicants” androids who are exactly like humans, except they lack empathy. Because Blade Runner is a crossover between the film noir genre and sci-fi, Deckard is a mix of both genre tropes, a wise-cracking, cynical, hardboiled detective who is arrogant and has an indifferent (almost cruel) perception of the replicants, who through the story goes on a journey to reinvent himself and change his opinions on the replicants. When contrasting Deckard with other sci-fi heroes, he is a very rare character, as his claim to heroism isn’t some sort of special power, but instead Deckard is an ordinary man, confronted with a with a situation in which he may either escape or be seduced by his environment, and whose testament of courage is that he does not resign himself to the morose life of his contemporaries. Since Blade Runner can be considered a study of the individual's emptiness in the face of his society, Deckard succeeds in doing what few characters in Hollywood science fiction have done: He outgrows his futuristic world and reestablishes his worth as a human being, something which, though not as spectacular as defeating a squadron of invading aliens or slaying a monster, is nonetheless just as triumphant – and, in a dystopian future, something even harder to accomplish. While the narrative doesn’t follow a typical journey to find a “holy grail” object, it follows Deckard journey of self-reflection. Deckard is matched by an atypical antagonist for the sci-fi drama, a replicant named by Roy who is desperate to survive past his 4-year time limit. Roy is a modern retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster, an unwanted and alienated monster, created by a scientist to die. In contrast to normal sci-fi villains, Roy’s motives are driven by self-preservation and the wish to live, a confrontation of the corporate system who created him to use him then left him to die.
Despite its characters straying from the stereotype of sci-fi films, the production design can be considered one of the greatest examples of sci-fi films. The movie is set in 2019 Los Angles, a grimy and beat down city, where the lowest dregs of society live. Of course, as this is a sci-fi film, Los Angles is decked out in full techno style, with soaring buildings, flying cars, and massive digital billboards that spout commercials 24/7. Artificial neon light has replaced natural sunlight and the huge illuminated adverts add to the sense of disorientation. The humid streets are crowded with inhabitants who speak in a strange, yet familiar language and the frequent downpour of heavy, warm rain onto the waste-filled streets emphasize the sense of claustrophobia. In terms of camera shots and editing, Blade Runner uses music, camera angles and lighting to manipulate our empathy for characters. We feel close to Deckard, Rachel, Roy, Pris, and Zhora, but distanced from Tyrell, Bryant and Leon. The low and high camera angles depict Roy as dominant over Deckard on the roof scenes. The establishment scene is threatening, haunting, mechanical, synthesized, a representation of this new version of L.A. The lighting is often dark, subtle, and low key. As far as costumes go, the designers went back to classic film noir for inspiration, Deckard’s coat, and Rachael’s Joan Crawford-esque shoulder pads as examples.
Film/magazine sample #2 – Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Ghost in the Shell is a 1995 animated movie from Japan centered on the soul, referred to as a “ghost” and the plot is propelled forward by a myth concerning an entirely robotic being containing its own “ghost”. This brings forth questions as to what a “ghost” is and whether artificial lifeforms can possess these “ghosts”. Similarly, it also pushes forward the question of what is inherently unique to humans if robotic beings can mimic something such as a “ghost”. This film presents the idea of dualism; the mind and body are presented as different entities. The main character is Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg that is separate from her body and can travel through the Cybernet. She is a female cyborg who leads the assault team known as Section 9, wherein she and her assault squad are set on a mission to capture a hacker known as “The Puppet Master,” who causes Motoko and her team to go on a number of chases to catch this elusive brain hacker. The film ends with Motoko and the Puppet Master essentially combining their brains and becoming one being in a new cyborg body after both of their original bodies were destroyed. Throughout the movie, Kusanagi wrestles with the existential conundrum manifest when reality has been thoroughly digitized and when human has sublimated into machine. She is the typical emotionless sci-fi protagonist, who through the narrative, must go on a journey to discover and capture the puppet master. The antagonist of the movie, the Puppet Master is an all-powerful computer program and hacker whose main goal is to preserve their newfound intellect and self-awareness.
The film can be described as another Neo-Noir cross over, in all terms except production design. Ghost in the Shell is filled with imagery of the body weaved with 90s technology, crude lines of esoteric code, cybernetic vision lined with digital fuzz. The world is a slowly denaturing tangle of cables and wires. This kind of retro-fetishism adds to the neo-noir and cyberpunk appeal of Ghost in the Shell. The future is an anxiously real projection using the visual symbolism of the 90’s—gritty and raw urban decay, riddled with crime, filled with ghosts and phantoms. The atmosphere is dark and brooding as a muted color palette casts everything in shadow. Ghost in the Shell‘s dystopian, deteriorating metropolis breathes like a more restrained version of Blade Runner‘s. Neo-noir elements ultimately facilitate the thematic explorations of the film by shifting anxiety and oppressive atmospheres from corrupt governments and megacorporations to the Ghost in the Shell‘s technologically-mediated world itself. Like many sci-fi works, the setting of Ghost in the Shell does not testify to the future, but to the reality of today. The universe of Ghost in the Shell serves as a parallel of our own physical and metaphysical worlds collapsed into one. On one hand, it’s a projection of a Hong Kong-inspired city-in-transition in a technologically advanced future much like Blade Runner. On the other hand, it serves as an allegorical representation of the flux and ambiguity of sign as a result of postmodernity.
More Examples
3. The Matrix (1999)
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