A funny thing happened in the 1960s. Well, lots of funny things, really, but for our purposes here a very specific thing happened: sci-fi became cool. There may have been sexy, intelligent sci-fi fare before but not like what was seen with Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rather than the over the top creature features and overblown alien invasions that dominated ’50s science-fiction films, modern iterations have been more reflective, more concerned with the human and technological element of the equation.
Spectrum Culture has compiled a list of the best sci-fi films from the last 40 years, works that illustrate this evolution in the tone of sci-fi itself. The most difficult issue was establishing the parameters for the list. Television and mini-series were not eligible, hence the lack of Battlestar Galactica. Similarly questionable subgenres like the recent rise of the superhero film were also eliminated. This is a list more concerned with works that are aware of the structures and themes of sci-fi and attempt to rewrite them in a new image. Some, like Alien and Blade Runner, have a defining aesthetic that has had an enormous influence on films even outside the genre; others, like Dark Star and Brazil, are post-modern in their commentary on advancement itself, crafting a bleakly humorous examination of where humanity might actually be heading; and still others force viewers to question what the boundaries of sci-fi even are, such as Dead Ringers and 28 Days Later do.
Admittedly some years left us with hardly anything to choose from, while others like 1982 had us fighting over multiple worthy entries. Even at its goofiest, modern sci-fi is a genre that creates more questions than it answers, creating What If? scenarios and predictions that aren’t meant to be accurate so much as they’re meant to be warnings, or commentary on where we as a civilization are right now. Taking a look at this list, you may detect trends in certain decades, or notice that other years suddenly become backwards-looking. Maybe some films will seem somewhat laughable now while others seem scarily accurate. And really, isn’t that all part of the fun? - Morgan Davis
1989: The Abyss (Dir: James Cameron)
In some ways, 1989′s The Abyss is the anti-Alien. In fact, director James Cameron decided to make the film while wrapping production on 1986′s sequel Aliens; rather than an isolated group of miners and roughnecks being pursued by a relentless monster far in the depths of space, it’s the story of scientists and soldiers being destroyed by their own paranoia in the depths of the ocean. The photography and technologies used in The Abyss still hold up surprisingly well, the filming requiring the largest underwater set ever built. But it’s not so much the breathtaking visual effects that makes The Abyss remarkable, as the relentless looming presence of the depths- the sheer darkness and overwhelming pressure of the most unwelcoming environment on our planet is not squandered for a moment. It’s rarely conceived of in science fiction that the oceans that span most of the surface of our planet are as alien to us as the void between stars- the ghostly and benevolent “Non-Terrestrial Lifeforms” of the film are one of the few exceptions. It’s easy to look for the strange in the emptiness of space, and just as easy to forget that it can exist just as much beneath us. - Nathan Kamal
1990: Total Recall (Dir: Paul Verhoeven)
Few people can argue that Paul Verhoeven didn’t change the landscape of science-fiction. Films like RoboCop proved that sci-fi could be viewed through a political lens, transforming the genre to something considerably more respected among academics. As ambitious as Verhoeven’s RoboCop was, Total Recall was the true canvas for his genius. Using an obscure Philip K. Dick story, Verhoeven not only changed the language of sci-fi cinema, but of all cinema as well. In casting Arnold Schwarzenegger as the incredulous accountant Douglas Quaid, Verhoeven was one of the few to recognize the importance of actor as avatar as much as character. Total Recall’s plot is simple: rather than spend the money to travel, account Douglas Quaid takes a “staycation” by having memory implants put in of a trip to Mars, without any of the hazards of actually traveling. After the procedure, however, his life falls apart and he discovers he is not who he has been told he is. Even his loving wife, played by Sharon Stone, seems to be out to get him.
Total Recall cannot be discounted for its science-fiction pioneering, however. The concepts of Dick’s roving Mars terrains and memory implants perfectly gel with Verhoeven’s vision of the future being grim and overrun with consumerism. People complain about the price of interstellar voyages, with safety being a secondary concern. Also the film features a wonderful advancement of science-fiction technologies, including the automated cabbie Johnny Cab, and the usage of a weapon beneath Mars. Total Recall succeeds because it does not fall into the trapping of science-fiction to use its technology as a crutch, but rather as a tool to advance a fierce criticism of the possibilities of society. - Rafael Gaitan
1991: Delicatessen (Dirs: Jean-Pierre Jenuet and Marc Caro)
As a genre, sci-fi still doesn’t get much respect (except from the geeks) and in film, it is often hijacked by special effects, something the Star Wars series made inescapable. This is a little unfortunate, as some of the best sci-fi films aren’t driven by effects, but rather by ideas and creativity. There are imaginative sci-fi films without lasers and aliens and space ships that have a homemade quality.
The debut feature from French directors Jean-Pierre Jenuet and Marc Caro, who made two films together before parting ways, is such a movie. They imagine a post-apocalyptic future as quirky, run down and cannibalistic. Confined to a dilapidated apartment building and the sewers beneath it, Delicatessen is a kind of black comedy populated by eccentric and sometimes homicidal characters. As with their second feature The City of Lost Children, the visuals are immediately striking and distinctive. They seem to imagine a world that ended in the ’50s, as there is little modern technology, tacky suburban décor, and only cheesy black and white TV programs. A good-natured ex-clown comes to live at a tenement house, run by a butcher, who occasionally carves up tenants for meat. The clown hits it off with the butcher’s sweet, near-sighted daughter, but, of course, is eyed by the butcher as a meal. Other tenants include a woman who hears voices and whose suicide attempts are as creative as Harold and Maude’s, a man who lives with snails and frogs, a vampy woman who sleeps with the butcher and two mischievous kids. Its charms are in the details, like a duet between musical saw and cello and a silent movie-like climax in a collapsing bathroom. There are traces of Gilliam and Lynch, but it’s clearly the work of two highly original and idiosyncratic filmmakers and it’s a pity that their collaboration didn’t last longer than two films. Delicatessen has become something of a cult movie, but it deserves a larger audience. - Lukas Sherman
1992: Blade Runner, Director’s Cut (Dir: Ridley Scott)
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner stands as a nearly perfect synthesis of genre and mood- combining the gloom, darkness and tension of noir with the eternally twin themes of science fiction: humanity and longevity. The gritty, rain-soaked Los Angeles of 2019 may seem preposterous now, but the iconic images of flaming towers and golden pyramids amidst a city full of Japanese Coca-Cola ads and artificial snake designers remain just as powerful as they did in the original 1982 release. So why did we choose 1992′s Director’s Cut? Simply put, the original was neutered; studio demands forced a “happy ending” and droning voiceover narration, both of which were decried by Scott and star Harrison Ford. With both of those excised (and the permanently ambiguous “Unicorn” scene re-inserted), Blade Runner the film can be seen as something close to what was intended. Although the story of a L.A. detective hunting humanoid androids known as “replicants” has only the smallest of similarities to famed science fiction author Philip K. Dick’s original novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the philosophical musings and squalor that it brought to a year dominated by the optimism of E.T. and the gung-ho adventurism of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan mark it as something unique. Science fiction has always looked to the future while questioning its own self, but rarely has it done so with so much humanity. Debatable as that humanity itself may be. - Nathan Kamal
1993: Jurassic Park (Dir: Steven Spielberg)
A frequent complaint about Jurassic Park upon its release in 1993 was that it lacked – snobby critic’s complaint here – character development and that it was purely a special effects bonanza. Certainly nearly every single character came ready-made as a sort of assembly line product: the wealthy proprietor whose grandiose vision is matched only by his cluelessness, the eternally optimistic graduate student and her grizzled, cynical teacher and a pair of adorable, ever-irascible and eternally annoying kids who too often manage muck things up. To some extent the Spielberg-directed movie has never quite shaken that stigma. This is understandable as Jurassic Park is in many ways your typical big-budget Hollywood blockbuster: there are countless near-catastrophes and epic moments, individual acts of both selfishness and sacrifice, a soundtrack as epic as John Hammond’s park, several awe-inspiring computer-generated effects that dazzle the eyes while the mind takes a siesta and, um, one poor guy facing death by dinosaur while on the crapper.
But dig a little deeper (get it?) and what becomes as striking as any visual is the film’s foreboding tone. The characters’ follies and flaws are instantly familiar to modern audiences: at least one character’s hubris leads to the destruction of what he holds most dear, while Ian Malcom’s protests against the “rape of the natural world” are predictably ignored. Far more than just a mesmerizing special effects how-to manual, Jurassic Park contains universal environmental themes that extend beyond the limits of a mainstream film: the devastating results when naive intentions and corporate greed collide, humanity’s desire to connect with and understand the past and man’s pursuit of technology and how best to use it. - Eric Dennis
1994: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Dir: Kenneth Branagh)
Since Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein’s Monster has taken its place alongside Dracula and the Wolf Man in the pantheon of Hollywood’s bogeymen, it’s easy to forget that Frankenstein is not really a horror film at all. In fact the story about a scientist trying to reanimate the dead is rooted entirely in the most basic vein of science fiction. As the companion piece to the Coppola-directed-monsters-need-love-too-mess of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Frankenstein could stand in as director-writer-star Kenneth Branagh’s stitched together corpse that ultimately overpowers its creator.
Though the film has its detractors, Frankenstein is an elegant and powerful mess. Branagh certainly lavished this film with arch melodrama, sumptuous costumes and detailed sets, but such grandiose measures match the tone of Mary Shelley’s 1818 source novel. Yeah, Aidan Quinn and Robert De Niro’s American accents sound out of place, but Branagh does quite well in invoking the Gothic feel of the book and allowing us to experience the madness that overcomes his Victor Frankenstein. The sexual tension between Branagh and co-star Helena Bonham Carter (whom he would later leave wife Emma Thompson for) is also quite a real and palpable thing. In a year like 1994, where the only other viable science fiction option is the execrable Stargate, I would take Branagh’s passionate bravado over studio cash grab in a lightning-stimulated heartbeat. And let us not forget the fiction of the science that lies beneath in which a smitten scientist dreams of eternal life to complement a notion as silly as eternal love. - David Harris
1995: 12 Monkeys (Dir: Terry Gilliam)
In 1962, an abstract documentarian released a science-fiction film that challenged conventions of the genre’s look and feel. Le Jetée tells the story of an unassuming time traveler through a series of compositionally beautiful stills and creator Chris Marker’s elegant storytelling narration. The time traveler attempts to remedy a doomed future by returning to the past, only – as in many future cinematic explorations of time-travel – to be caught inevitably in the paradox of his own chronological web. Acclaimed science-fiction director Terry Gilliam took Marker’s short masterpiece and extended its essentials into a full-length blockbuster production – 12 Monkeys – complete with Gilliam’s own taste for the visually eccentric. Gone are the black and white stills; a kaleidoscope of colors, visual styles and eccentric set design are in their place. And instead of Jean Négroni’s slow and deliberate narration are Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt in some of the best casting this side of Die Hard and Snatch. But Gilliam’s version of the time-traveler’s story infuses Marker’s writing with some zaniness and modernizing additions without sacrificing the underlying story’s emotional appeals, minimal special effects and ultimate shock value. In fact, it’s possible to see both films without realizing one draws so heavily from the other – until the final act of 12 Monkeys where Gilliam pays an innovative yet familiar homage to Marker’s story. - Michael Merline
1996: Mars Attacks! (Dir: Tim Burton)
On one level, Tim Burton’s comedic Mars Attacks! is about an armada of green little motherfuckers trying to vaporize our favorite stars such as Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close and Jim Brown. There is plenty to enjoy on the surface. Cows are set on fire, Nicholson looks like he’s having the time of his life playing dual roles and Slim Whitman’s warble is the secret weapon that saves humanity. On the other hand, Burton is lampooning more than ’50s Martian paranoia. No sir, he points his arrows at the sleaze that infiltrates all corners of humanity. When not assailing the White House or the ineffectual military led by Rod Steiger (who gets my vote for best death scene), Burton is also skewering avarice, economics, the media and New Agers. For some reason, Mars Attacks! has its share of critics. They think the humor is infantile, the effects look cheap, maybe the Tom Jones song irks them. But that is precisely Burton’s point. Mars Attacks! is a knowing homage to the sci-fi cheapies of the ’50s and perhaps a modern audience that expects James Cameron style effects and horrific gore can’t stomach this nasty little confection. Be warned, these aliens are just as deadly as anything Ridley Scott or John Carpenter can throw at us. They just have a better sense of humor when slaughtering mankind. - David Harris
1997: Gattaca (Dir: Andrew Niccol)
Gattaca was a colossal flop when it came out. The film was pretty, sure, but it was surprisingly heady considering its budget (a then staggering $36 million), and its subject, genetics, a field that is still not widely understood by the masses. Its reputation has grown over time and those who criticize its accusations against eugenics, (most notably bioethicist James Hughes who argued that the film had it all wrong because genetic discrimination already exists and rightfully so), miss the point. By making this claim, however, Hughes only serves to add further credibility to Gattaca.
Centered around Ethan Hawke’s Vincent Freeman, a man desperate to become an astronaut and overcome his family’s disappointment , Gattaca describes a world where being genetically pure isn’t just a fantasy, it’s expected. Freeman’s only chance at fulfilling his dream is to assume the identity of Jude Law’s Jerome Morrow, who despite his perfect genetic profile, failed to become the sports star he wanted to be and then subsequently failed to kill himself, instead only becoming handicapped. The emphasis on genetics in Gattaca may seem to be fantastic and nearly unbelievable, but the only difference between it and what exists today is that the society in Gattaca doesn’t pretend the discrimination doesn’t exist. While the film makes the point that even those without perfect genetics can achieve remarkable things, it also makes it clear that the field of eugenics isn’t so far fetched, the real issue at stake is how far we’re willing to take the field. Hughes and others may be correct in arguing that there are benefits to be had by ensuring our astronauts, our police, our athletes, our soldiers are as genetically perfect as they can be, but Gattaca isn’t arguing those benefits, instead just asking what we sacrifice by obtaining them. - Morgan Davis
1998: Dark City (Dir: Alex Proyas)
Many fans, including Roger Ebert, have labeled Dark City as a new type of sci-fi, little explored before if at all. But this isn’t entirely true, it’s merely that Dark City is just such a radical (for the mainstream, at least) interpretation of classic film structures that it feels like a new beast altogether. With a neo-noir tone and architecture and design heavily influenced by German Expressionism, Dark City presents a version of humanity through the scope of an alien life form. These aliens, The Strangers, would be creepy even if they didn’t have the ability to warp their surroundings with their minds. They are pursuing John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), a human who has somehow managed to gain the abilities of The Strangers but has no idea who he is or what he’s done in his past, his only help coming in the form of the suspicious Dr. Daniel Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland). While Dark City concerns Murdoch’s hunt for his past and the woman he might love, Emma (Jennifer Connelly), it’s also an examination of how necessary the truth really is to our lives and whether acquiring it will help or hurt us in the long run.
Director Alex Proyas’s biggest success with Dark City is his ability to bring such a distinct visual style to what otherwise could have been just another sci-fi crime thriller; the abilities of The Strangers allow Proyas to work in countless references to the works of Fritz Lang, crafting landscapes that are as human as alien entities can manage. The story, ultimately, is less important or noteworthy than watching Proyas weave in and out of landscapes and miraculously balancing it well enough that it’s never less than entertaining. Proyas has been unable to follow up Dark City, instead heading down the road of brainless mainstream fare like I, Robot and Knowing, but at least he got the formula right once. - Morgan Davis
1999: The Iron Giant (Dir: Brad Bird)
So much sci-fi is concerned with the future: glowing neon signs, dystopian urban wastelands and silvery jumpsuits hold a certain sex appeal, after all. But what of the past? Director Brad Bird dared to look back to 1957 in The Iron Giant, re-imagining a world where Norman Rockwell paintings could feature giant interstellar robots alongside his scenes of Americana. When 11-year-old Hogarth Hughes finds a giant metal robot in his backyard, he reacts exactly as you’d expect a smart young man to: with unmeasured excitement. His new friend isn’t exactly inconspicuous, and it’s not long before the United States government sends the professionally paranoid Kent Mansley to investigate. Hogarth and the giant find a temporary safe haven in the local junkyard (prime real-estate for a giant metal-eating man), but the good times are short lived: Mansley finds enough evidence of the giant to send in the military, and the story shifts from one of friendship to one of the virtues of pacifism, and back again. It’s fantastic, fun stuff – and that’s without pigeonholing the film as a children’s movie. There’s simply too much love and detail in every frame to try and dumb it down. Cold War paranoia hangs thick from the opening credits, and the assumed inevitability of nuclear destruction and death is more than touched upon, it’s the centerpiece of the final third of the movie. The character development is subtle and realistic, and the voice cast is superb. But the themes and setting are so well explored, you may not notice the details at first. You’ll just notice one hell of a great (and criminally overlooked) movie. - Jason Stoff
2000: Battle Royale (Dir: Kinji Fukasaku)
Imagine that you’re in school in an era when adults have suddenly become entirely distrustful of youth because of rampant protests. Like any kid, you think you’re invincible and despite the rumors you keep hearing, you see no reason to believe that the adults of the world might want to harm you, let alone kill you. Then you find yourself gassed on your way to a “field trip” and wake up on some weird island with a potentially dangerous device wrapped around your neck while an authority figure you already hated informs you that each of you will have to fight for your survival, to either kill your peers or be killed until only one is left. This is the world of Battle Royale, an oft-misunderstood and terrifying modern reinterpretation of Lord of the Flies. Battle Royale isn’t the most obvious sci-fi film but that’s ultimately to its credit; it features a dystopian future and advanced technology in the collars the kids have to wear, but it never makes its genre loyalty entirely clear. It’s easy to see why the film is such a successful sci-fi work, blending as it does the age old scientific concept of population control and, digging further, how to best control a developed civilization. Like any good dystopian population, the society at the center of Battle Royale has become comfortable with the methods by which it is controlled, as they’ve clearly been slowly immersed in the violence which so mesmerizes and, ironically, pacifies them. The scariest part is that some just see Battle Royale as a sexy gorefest, proving that maybe this medicine isn’t so difficult to swallow as some of us may imagine. - Morgan Davis
2001: A.I: Artificial Intelligence (Dir: Steven Spielberg)
The best science fiction films allow us a vehicle to experience our wildest dreams, our craziest what-if notions. If you take a close look at most of these movies, they are most often set in a milieu where humanity has lost control of its own ambition. Furthermore, the products of these aspirations, be it in the form of computer, virus or android, have taken control of their masters. Though A.I.: Artificial Intelligence features the uncomfortable alliance of Steven Spielberg with the late Stanley Kubrick, there are enough ideas at play here to buoy this film to greatness, despite its many flaws. Kubrick had planned to turn the idea of a robot child (Haley Joel Osment) who dreams to become a real boy into a picture for 20 years. Unfortunately, Kubrick’s dream was derailed by his death in 1999 until Spielberg decided to make it reality. One of the most fascinating things about A.I. is the direct conflict between Spielberg’s fuzzy humanism and Kubrick’s dark vision, strange bedfellows that make A.I. such a captivating, yet schizophrenic work. But Spielberg ultimately triumphs over the project’s inherent bi-polarism by creating a film that is both visually exciting and thought-provoking. Spielberg is responsible for some of the most indelible scenes in film history, be it the bicycle across the moon or Indy Jones running from a boulder, and you can add the sequence where Osment travels through a flooded New York City to that list.
Perhaps one of the most interesting, and subversive, things about A.I. is its parallel with the story of Pinocchio. Whether it is merely an update of that story in futuristic clothing or a deeper, more incisive look at the cruelty experienced by the manufactured boy who wants nothing more to be like his creator (and hence a correlation to our own quest to become closer to God), the links to Carlo Collodi’s 19th century tale are undeniable. And though some may feel the film ends on a positive note, there is nothing more heartbreaking than knowing the poor robot child only has one evening left with his reanimated mother. Hopefully the memory of that final cuddle will warm, rather than haunt, the android as he spends the rest of his days outliving the humans that created him in the first place. - David Harris
2002: 28 Days Later… (Dir: Danny Boyle)
There’s science fiction movies and then there’s zombie movies- both have a whole lot of overlap on themes and style, but both also have their own set of individual conventions that make them distinct genres. So why is 2002′s 28 Days Later science fiction? Because director Danny Boyle made the distinct choice of opening his zombie apocalypse by revealing the cause- human technology and hubris. Oh, and rage-infested monkeys chewing peoples faces off. Where the film makes its grand leap, though, is that Cillian Murphy’s comatose patient Jim sees none of this; whereas slowly dawning awareness and panic has been a staple of zombie movies from Night of The Living Dead onward, we see only the horribly empty desolation left afterward. From the empty hospital in which he awakes to the lonely timekeeping of Big Ben, the images of an eerily silent London are chilling in a way that slaughter can only rarely achieve- this isn’t bloodshed, it’s complete destruction. Combine that with decidedly revisionist zombies and the naked desperation of the few survivors (Brendan Gleeson’s avuncular Frank is particularly heartbreaking), and you have a science fiction film that’s chilling in both its depiction of the inhuman and the inhumane. - Nathan Kamal
2003: The Time of the Wolf (Dir: Michael Haneke)
Austrian, French-based writer-director Michael Haneke may be our generation’s foremost cinematic provocateur. While his films resist easy categorization, from his feature debut, The Seventh Continent to Funny Games, he is remarkably consistent as a chronicler of unease and urban dread, a sometimes sadistic assailant of bourgeoisie comforts and complacency. His films are both stark and visceral, befitting a filmmaker who cites Au Hasard Balthazar and as favorite films. His 2003 film, Time of the Wolf, pairs him with French actress Isabelle Huppert, with whom he also made the acclaimed The Piano Teacher. While few of his films can fit into a genre, Time of the Wolf is about the end of the world, a well-used sci-fi trope. Typically, Haneke does something a little different with it. There are no aliens or homicidal zombies here; for Haneke, there’s no need of a supernatural evil as the evil of man is plenty, something shockingly demonstrated in the opening scene.
In an interview, Haneke spoke about constantly seeing disasters on the news-”a little bit of the end of the world”-and this was his attempt to personalize it, as well as to make a film “for our superfluous society.” The simple plot focuses on Huppert’s character and her two children, who navigate the French countryside in a clearly post-apocalyptic world. We’re never told what happened or even what the time is, but such details are unnecessary. If it sounds a little like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, well, it’s not far off. The domestic unit is the heart of Haneke’s films and he is interested with happens to that unit under assault and duress. The family meets up with a small band of survivors and, rather than the unity that is found in some end of the world films, the veneer of civilization is stripped off and people are greedy, racist and suspicious. You come to realize that the title, taken from an ancient German poem, is about the people; as in many of his films, the threat seems external, but is really internal-we are our own enemy. - Lukas Sherman
2004: Primer (Dir: Shane Carruth)
Shane Carruth’s Primer is a film that tries to bring science-fiction out of the ether, daring almost to call it science-fact. Carruth, a former mathematician and engineer, actually pursued a degree in Mathematics in order to fully comprehend and properly represent the physics and the technology of Primer. The plot is simple: four friends spend their days working for a large unnamed company and their evenings using their advanced technical knowledge on pet projects. When one of them reveals that he has been working on an viable way to time-travel, the others jump on board. As in all time-travel stories, their initial minor successes spur their desire to change every aspect they can control.
Primer is an excellent example of a progressive science-fiction genre. It attempts to ground the concepts of the genre into something explicable and believable. Carruth’s film is also important because of how it managers to balance a purely logistic aspect (the time-travel) and center it with the crucial element of cinema- human drama. As much as the film makes you care about the actual process of time-travel, the characters come to the forefront as well, and as such Primer haunts the audience because it is believable. The tagline of the film is “What happens if it really works?” Carruth has managed to make a movie that threatens to raise that question past a hypothetical. - Rafael Gaitan
2005: Serenity (Dir: Joss Whedon)
Joss Whedon is a renaissance man. He is famous for taking conventional genres and finding a fresh new spin on them. With Buffy the Vampire Slayer he presented the idea of vampirism as a metaphor for teenage anxiety and puberty, and with his short-lived Firefly series he created a blend between the Old West and the Final Frontier, using space as an analogue for Manifest Destiny. Unfortunately, Firefly was much too ahead of its time, and despite rabid fandom, the Fox network shelved it after one season, lost to the annals of history…but not for long. In 2005, Whedon finally got the financing and the support to resurrect his ragtag group of “big damn heroes” (their words) for one last hurrah.
Serenity is about the crew of the Firefly-class ship Serenity, as they stumble upon a large government conspiracy that may have doomed society forever. The real joy of Serenity is that it manages to cross so many genres without over-relying on any one, and including the traditional Whedonesque dark humor to create a wholly original entry into the science-fiction genre. For every spaceship and hover car in the film, their is also an old fashioned revolver and a duster coat to ground it back. It might be the first Hollywood space western. Serenity also breaks the conventions of sci-fi because there is a levity to the film, instead of being played straightforward. Nathan Fillion’s Captain Reynolds is probably the most humorous character, and his interactions with tough-guy Jayne (Adam Baldwin) rival on slap-stick, despite the fact that they are taking place on the bridge of a ship with intergalactic capabilities. The film does also present some interesting re-imagining of science-fiction cliches, including spaceships that run on conventional fuel, to balance the otherworldly scenarios, such as spacesuits to combat the pressure of the void. - Rafael Gaitan
2006: Children of Men (Dir: Alfonso Cuarón)
Children of Men’s greatest strength is in its realization of its dystopian future. From the very first shot, a long uninterrupted take that perfectly sums up the chaos and fear of the world as the film envisions it 21 years from now, Alfonso Cuarón has you under his thumb. Something strange has happened, and women are no longer able to conceive. The source of this malady is never explained or even much circled around, but its probability is never really in doubt. The reason for this is because of the clarity of vision behind the film’s world. It’s an easily conceivable worst-case scenario of how we as a species could wind up given the Current State of Things. The reason that this sentiment isn’t heavy-handed is because it isn’t at all the thesis or point of the film. Children of Men imagines a horrible world and then injects it with (non-religious) faith; it’s a film about people struggling to make things right again even in the face of almost unrelenting hopelessness. The scenario, and even most of the events that occur in the film, are deeply cynical, but the underlying sentiment is anything but.
Theo (Clive Owen) is kidnapped by an organization of freedom fighters headed by his estranged former wife, Julian (Julianne Moore), and entrusted guiding an improbably pregnant African refugee, Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), to a meeting point with a futurist organization that may or may not exist at a meeting point that may or may not be agreed upon. The terms behind the goal are vague, because direct communication between underground organizations is difficult and improbable. That immigration is completely forbidden and any attempts to enter the UK are greeted with assault rifles means that Kee’s origins are also a complicating factor in the plan. The journey is captured through a sort of subjective-verité style, always anchored by Theo’s perspective, but with a documentary-like feel. Cuarón’s a director who really knows how to use handheld cameras and it’s a testament to his skill and tastefulness that even the single-take centerpieces of the film feel (mostly) non-boastful and immersive. The fact that this wasn’t one of the biggest hits of 2006 is thoroughly a bummer, but following his excellent Harry Potter installment up with this has hopefully unfailingly established Cuarón as a skilled and sensitive purveyor of thoughtful, yet accessible, big-budget entertainment. This is what Hollywood movies should be like. - Andrei Alupului
2007: Sunshine (Dir: Danny Boyle)
Is it about global warming or about humanity’s need to control what it can’t? The answer can be found by simply looking at the director credit. Danny Boyle’s works are never really about anything in particular. This isn’t to say that Boyle’s films are aimless, it’s just that they’re never quite what they appear to be the first time around and Sunshine is by no means an exception. When the production was announced, Boyle claimed it would be his 2001 or Solaris, a philosophical look at space travel and the role of humans in the universe at large, full of references to his inspirations and influences (like the astronaut named Pinbacker, all too similar to the Pinback of Dark Star).
Although the story is more or less about a crew on a suicide mission to detonate a nuclear bomb in the center of the sun (don’t ask), it becomes an examination of the psychological effects of pursuing a mission you have no reason to believe will be successful since it has already failed in the past. More importantly, it’s a look into the meaning of humanity’s relationship with the sun itself, regarded by so many early cultures as a god. The religious aspects of the film are perhaps its most startling and effective, portraying the sun as quite possibly the ultimate representation of the vengeful god of so many religions. Though the sun gives life, it just as easily takes it away and no manner of prayer or begging will convince it to do anything but continue its cycle as it always has. - Morgan Davis
2008: WALL-E (Dir: Andrew Stanton)
WALL-E does something remarkable – it makes the inhuman infinitely more emotive and well, human than any actual flesh and blood character. Pixar’s 2008 masterpiece, WALL-E is a love story as much it is science fiction, and a wonderful example of either. The story of the titular trash compactor on an abandoned planet and its encounter with EVE, its complete counterpart and opposite. WALL-E is ambitious in nearly every way- its prominent lack of dialogue, the inclusion of live-action film and stalwart and stern environmentalism. Any of these things would be remarkable, but particularly so in that all this is for ostensibly a children’s film. But more than the breadth of its aspirations, this is a film that is unafraid to show growth in a way that is unforced and natural. The obese and pampered humans learn to take command of themselves and their curiosity; the robots learn what it is to have instincts and desires beyond that of a primary function. WALL-E is that rarest of artistic creations, something that challenges its audience while entertaining them. Robots have been seen as cute and bumbling and emotive and nearly human in many films, but this one shows them as something more than human. - Nathan Kamal
[Graphic: Brian Raquipiso]
