Science Fiction Films – Give It To Me… Hard Core!

A long, long time ago, in a ‘burb quite far away...

Sat an impressionable young girl; who knows how old?  Thirteen perhaps. Maybe twelve.

A life-long tomboy, she was a voracious reader as well.  One whom her much older cousin (theoretically, let’s call him “Roger”) knew was into tall tales. For instance, Star Trek and Tom Baker/Peter Davidson’s Dr. Who.

One day, Roger handed the girl some magazines.  Their titles? Amazing Stories and Analog.

Within those pages, she found the literary equivalent of the Holy Grail – a treasure trove of hardcore speculative prose. 

You know (or SHOULD know) what came next.  Pre-teen Science Fiction love at first sight. A reading addiction which snowballed from there.

And before you could say Buck Rogers three times fast, the girl was introduced to more “Astounding” writer names:

Isaac Asimov. Larry Niven. Joe Haldeman. Robert Heinlein. Frank Herbert. Orson Scott Card. Anne McCafferty. Ursula K. LeGuin.

And the paperbacks kept on coming from Roger.  That’s the awesome thing about physical books. They’re a cinch to lend out to read.

What ultimately went down between SF and that girl?  To quote Forrest Gump, the two got along like Peas and Carrots from then on. Every single gosh-darned day.

Even more SF authors joined the orgy: Melinda Snodgrass (The Circuit Trilogy), Harry Harrison (The Stainless Steel Rat), William Gibson (Cyber-Punk!), J. Neil Schulman (The Rainbow Cadenza). And more.

Then there were the films and TV shows.  Star Wars defined her childhood: she dreamt of being Han Solo for years.  (Princess Leia? Who cares? That character wasn’t as cool as Ford.) With Star Trek, she developed a major crush on McCoy and Scotty – and secretly wanted to be Spock. On Battlestar Galactica, Starbuck/Dirk Benedict was a total dream.

By fourteen, our hero even got to meet Isaac Asimov at a book signing, who flirted innocently her adolescent, pimple studded way.

As a result, life-long obsessions were forged: marking my writing skills for life. Showing me what Science Fiction CAN be. A lesson that it gives me pleasure to pass on.

As of today, I’ve got seven SF features/TV Pilots under my belt.  One of these, Stream, is in development as we speak - with name brand talent attached. Then there’s those thirty SF shorts I slaved over. Yup, I’ve written a few speculative yarns in my day.

After all, who doesn’t dig Science Fiction? Some of it’s pure schlocky fun. Take Guardians of the Galaxy, for instance. All the silly Marvel stuff aside, Rocket and Groot’s banter makes that flick worthwhile.

But do you really wanna make a nerd drool? Or an SF gal scream for more (Philip K.) Dick?

Then you’ve gotta live up to the literary promises of SF; what pioneers like Jules Verne created the damned genre for. IE: using the “what if” hook of scientific and political scenarios to dig deep into the human condition. Unearthing good and bad. Pro and con.

Not that every attempt succeeds.  Sometimes - studios are just too tired to perform. Look at Jupiter Rising: it went limp. And Disney’s Black Hole sucked. A lot. Which is ok.  Don’t take it personally, sweetheart. It happens to all screenwriters, once in awhile.

When it comes to SF, it’s best that directors take their time, and go slow.

Sometimes, it’s indie flicks that score.  For instance: Cube in 1997. Moon in 2009. Then there’s Primer in 2004. Made for only $7,000, it collected the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, and grossed almost half a mill worldwide. Proving that when SF (intellectually) stimulates its audience, it can produce major bang for its buck!

Hollywood’s reluctantly produced some classics, too.  Not all of which have the reputation they should, but have scored all the same. For instance, hard-core titles such as these:

Strange Days (directed by Kathryn Bigelow of The Hurt Locker – and starring Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett).

The Concept: What happens when transferring memories becomes possible? A hard look at race relations at the fictional turn of the century. 

Her (Spike Jonze, Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson).

The Concept: When does AI become human; worthy both of rights… and love? Asimov covered that topic, too. Via the book and film: Millennium Man.

District Nine (a film which needs NO introduction.)

The Concept: The danger of looking at self-aware groups as “the other” – whether the dividing line is racial or alien doesn’t count.

Recently, that list of SF conquests has continued on.  Films like Gravity, Contact and The Arrival prove Science Fiction need not always consist of space battles with lasers shooting everywhere, marauding robots running wild, predator alien monsters, and gaudy, unnecessary FX. 

That’s just superficial window dressing – flashy stuff that can’t take a girl all the way. When done right, true SF hits the intellectual G-Spot, flying an audience virtually (and literally) around the world: warning them against dystopian futures, highlighting technological potentials, and helping us understand how being human really feels.

So here’s that lesson I promised. Though sometimes you gotta make it short and quick:

If you’re gonna take up twenty bucks and an hour and a half of my day, you’d better rock a nerd chick’s world, Stud. When you write and direct your SF masterpiece: don’t just make me squeal. Make me THINK.