Cerebral Sci-Fi Films

[RJDiogenes]

"Science Fiction" is a story which hinges on the extrapolation of science or technology and how it effects an individual or society. The diminutive "Sci Fi" means anything using the tropes of Science Fiction, but not necessarily the substance, although stories can fall into both categories (as well as others). Wrath Of Khan, for example, was Sci Fi (Space Opera) with a Science Fiction subplot.

That's a very specialized, ivory tower definition of "Science Fiction." I'm not sure that's how the term is used in the real world, where pretty much everyones consider FLASH GORDON, STAR WARS, and TERMINATOR science fiction.

No, in the real world people say "would of," "wreck havoc" and call Star Wars Science Fiction. I know people who refer to Stephen King as "that science fiction stuff." You use the term "ivory tower" derisively, but I think high standards are good and that words should have meanings. The purpose of language is to communicate information, after all.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

That's a very specialized, ivory tower definition of "Science Fiction." I'm not sure that's how the term is used in the real world, where pretty much everyones consider FLASH GORDON, STAR WARS, and TERMINATOR science fiction.

agreed. perhaps RJDiogenes should see this page:

Grading SF for Realism


We are discussing cerebral scifi films not necessarily how realistic the science is...

 

[lurok]

What do you guys think about cerebral scifi films?

Nothing against them (whatever they are) as long as people don't make too much of them. They're only movies.

Though I enjoyed your SF Grading link and the fact my beloved Gojira is 'soft sci-fi'

 

[Kegg]

"Science Fiction" is a story which hinges on the extrapolation of science or technology and how it effects an individual or society.

This is a great definition for those who don't want The Sirens of Titan or The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch to be considered science fiction. The Sirens of Titan is bitterly funny and a genius novel and as much a serious, sober analysis of technology's hypothetical function as I am a gas giant.

Hell I'm currently reading The Dispossed by Ursula Le Guin, and while this novel is very much interested in exploring how and why societies are constructed and what the consequences of that construction is - from the way words exist in a language, the unspoken assumptions that dictate thought even when not relevant to that thought, et cetera - the role of technology barely enters into it. And the extent it does - the Divlab computers, the theory of simultaneity - it is not enough to say it 'hinges'.

This really is the bulk of my problem about efforts to define science fiction upwards, to a so-called higher standard. It's obstensibly about distinguishing between smart science fiction and - typically - more crass, mass produced genre fare (not only is the space opera a target of derision here, the term originates from a similar mode of argument).

My problem is it'd reduce science fiction to a specific kind of speculative fiction: Stories that confine themselves to realistically depicting hypothetical futures. Sure, works within this much tighter definition can have appeal but they're also, well, avoiding a lot of really good science fiction.

Incidentally:

Wrath Of Khan, for example, was Sci Fi (Space Opera) with a Science Fiction subplot.

The Genesis Device is a magic macguffin and neither Wrath of Khan nor its sequel, The Search for Spock, seriously address the ramifications that technology enabling people to automatically create planets complete with life would result in. McCoy observing that they'd be like gods is not enough here, the question is raised and then dashed with protomatter.

 

[RAMA]

RAMA mentioned Sunshine which has to be the most squandered first half of a film ever. It could have been a great contender but instead it's just dreadful. I place it firmly with Event Horizon as a good idea turned into a schlock splatter movie.

Come to think of it, Supernova almost falls into that category but there wasn't any splatter.

Sunshine is far superior, its actually pretty measured in its presentation, not really too intellectual or too "horrific" at any point. Same can't be said for Event Horizon, which was basically a planned splatter movie with some silly science. While the ending is disappointing, it doesn't affect the fact that someone really tried to make a more realistic movie to try to provoke some thought...I'd say 85% was of it was great.

 

[RAMA]

I just saw Adjustment Bureau...I would add it to the list of cerebral SF. I think Imposter is also..Strange Days is another one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_(film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Days_(film)

RAMA

 

[RJDiogenes]

That's a very specialized, ivory tower definition of "Science Fiction." I'm not sure that's how the term is used in the real world, where pretty much everyones consider FLASH GORDON, STAR WARS, and TERMINATOR science fiction.

agreed. perhaps RJDiogenes should see this page:

Grading SF for Realism

That page agrees with me.

We are discussing cerebral scifi films not necessarily how realistic the science is...

Digressions often come up....

"Science Fiction" is a story which hinges on the extrapolation of science or technology and how it effects an individual or society.

This is a great definition for those who don't want The Sirens of Titan or The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch to be considered science fiction. The Sirens of Titan is bitterly funny and a genius novel and as much a serious, sober analysis of technology's hypothetical function as I am a gas giant.

It's not about whether one wants certain stories to be Science Fiction-- I enjoy Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon serials as much as I enjoy Foundation-- it's about accurate terminology (and, as a sideline, the ignorance of the common people, who think that something like Foundation is the same as an old movie serial). Would you watch Casablanca and say, "That was a great mystery movie?" Of course not. By the same token, I would not say that Wrath Of Khan is a Science Fiction movie.

This really is the bulk of my problem about efforts to define science fiction upwards, to a so-called higher standard. It's obstensibly about distinguishing between smart science fiction and - typically - more crass, mass produced genre fare (not only is the space opera a target of derision here, the term originates from a similar mode of argument).

I don't consider Space Opera a term of derision, and I don't think many others do either, these days. There have been several high-profile Space Opera anthologies in the past few years.

My problem is it'd reduce science fiction to a specific kind of speculative fiction: Stories that confine themselves to realistically depicting hypothetical futures. Sure, works within this much tighter definition can have appeal but they're also, well, avoiding a lot of really good science fiction.

It doesn't reduce anything to anything. It just uses the language accurately.

Incidentally:

Wrath Of Khan, for example, was Sci Fi (Space Opera) with a Science Fiction subplot.

The Genesis Device is a magic macguffin and neither Wrath of Khan nor its sequel, The Search for Spock, seriously address the ramifications that technology enabling people to automatically create planets complete with life would result in. McCoy observing that they'd be like gods is not enough here, the question is raised and then dashed with protomatter.

I didn't say it was particularly deep, but the ethics of terraforming and the possible use of terraforming technology as a weapon is raised, which is technically Science Fiction.

 

[Pingfah]

In addition: Man from Earth

This film should be mentioned in every post, definitely one of the most thoughtful and intelligent sci-fi movies I have seen. Absolutely love it.

 

[Kegg]

It's not about whether one wants certain stories to be Science Fiction-- I enjoy Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon serials as much as I enjoy Foundation--

Foundation is as plausible a technological extrapolation from our current reality as Flash Gordon. It's basically Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire... IN SPAAAAACE. It's bigger on ideas than Alex Raymond's adventure strip, but that doesn't make any of them plausibe extrapolations (psychohistory is kind of magical, really).

The Asimov Robot stories would have a better claim to being science fiction under your definition.

it's about accurate terminology

But I consider Philip K. Dick a science fiction author. I think it's accurate to do so. He called himself such.

I'm more interested in what a phrase is used to mean rather then what its words look like it ought to mean. Hell, 'science fiction' sounds like fiction that could be all about, for example, J. Robert Oppenheimer. I suppose Doctor Atomic is a science fiction opera now.

 

[Gepard]

I'm more interested in what a phrase is used to mean rather then what its words look like it ought to mean. Hell, 'science fiction' sounds like fiction that could be all about, for example, J. Robert Oppenheimer. I suppose Doctor Atomic is a science fiction opera now.

Even if you're interested "what it looks like it ought to mean," I don't think RJ's definition necessarily follows. "Science fiction" as a term can be parsed any number of ways – fiction about real science, stories containing fictional science, or or fiction that has some science-type stuff rammed into it in some fashion which may or may not be the focus of the plot. I suppose it depends on what part of speech you interpret the "science" and "fiction" as being, and which word is modifying the other, or if they're both modifying a third term.

At any rate, it's ambiguous enough that real-world usage is more fluid than the rigid definition would have it. Which is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned – no matter what anyone says, it just doesn't feel right to have a movie filled with spaceships and aliens and laser swords that's not called science fiction just because we don't get lectures on how the applied phlebotum works.

 

[Mistral]

In addition: Man from Earth

This film should be mentioned in every post, definitely one of the most thoughtful and intelligent sci-fi movies I have seen. Absolutely love it.

Agreed-so I quoted you.

Gattaca is, to me, "cerebral" scifi. Minority Report is not. I use Eddie Izzard's inadvertent definition: when he talks about American movies in Dressed to Kill he makes great fun of the explosions, riveting action and the shoveling of popcorn into one's mouth.
Cerebral science fiction is the stuff that has me thinking so hard I forget to eat the popcorn.

I'm not saying you can't have an explosion and still remain cerebral-Children of Men does that nicely-but the differences between I Am Legend and When The Wind Blows are enormous. A cerebral movie leaves me sitting in silence afterwards going, "Huh. Wow. They went to interesting places with that." Not, "Where's the restroom?"

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

That's a very specialized, ivory tower definition of "Science Fiction."; I'm not sure that's how the term is used in the real world, where pretty much everyones consider FLASH GORDON, STAR WARS, and TERMINATOR science fiction.

Those kind of definitions are meaningless except for purposes of self-flattery. Vonnegut nailed this one:

I have run with [science fiction writers] some, and they are generous and amusing souls, but I must now make a true statement that will put them through the roof: They are joiners. They are a lodge. If they didn't enjoy having a gang of their own so much, there would be no such category as science-fiction. They love to stay up all night, arguing the question, "What is science-fiction?" One might as usefully inquire, ''What are the Elks? And what is the Order of the Eastern Star?''

Well--it would be a drab world without meaningless social aggregations.

"Science fiction" is nothing more than a marketing category, like "Romance" or "Mystery" or "Western" - clerks at Barnes & Noble use it as a guide to which books are stocked on what shelves. Beyond that, it's utility as an indicator of content is not and never has been good.

 

[xortex]

Dennis, you beat me to it. Everything is a science or an art. Someoneon these boards said 'Singing in the Rain' was the greatest science fiction film of all time. The lie, and some Hollywood magic, that makes the truth possible. Now is it true because we say it is or because we can't prove it isn't yet. A mystery will always remain a mystery. The Matrix ties directly into the Human mind/condition/brain as well as everything else and the universe itself as the way thigs really are. I.e. how the universe (everything) sees us (everything else and nothing), or everything's everything or as my father used to say it, the nothing beyond nothing.

 

[Gepard]

Dennis, you beat me to it. Everything is a science or an art. Someoneon these boards said 'Singing in the Rain' was the greatest science fiction film of all time. The lie, and some Hollywood magic, that makes the truth possible. Now is it true because we say it is or because we can't prove it isn't yet. A mystery will always remain a mystery. The Matrix ties directly into the Human mind/condition/brain as well as everything else and the universe itself as the way thigs really are. I.e. how the universe (everything) sees us (everything else and nothing), or everything's everything.

Even think is sitting in a corner wondering what the fuck you just wrote.

 

[Greg Cox]

At any rate, it's ambiguous enough that real-world usage is more fluid than the rigid definition would have it. Which is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned – no matter what anyone says, it just doesn't feel right to have a movie filled with spaceships and aliens and laser swords that's not called science fiction just because we don't get lectures on how the applied phlebotum works.

Exactly. Any definition of "science fiction" that excludes FLASH GORDON, STAR WARS, or THE WRATH OF KHAN bears no resemblance to the way the term is actually used in the real world.

 

[RAMA]

In addition: Man from Earth

This film should be mentioned in every post, definitely one of the most thoughtful and intelligent sci-fi movies I have seen. Absolutely love it.

Agreed-so I quoted you.

Gattaca is, to me, "cerebral" scifi. Minority Report is not. I use Eddie Izzard's inadvertent definition: when he talks about American movies in Dressed to Kill he makes great fun of the explosions, riveting action and the shoveling of popcorn into one's mouth.
Cerebral science fiction is the stuff that has me thinking so hard I forget to eat the popcorn.

I'm not saying you can't have an explosion and still remain cerebral-Children of Men does that nicely-but the differences between I Am Legend and When The Wind Blows are enormous. A cerebral movie leaves me sitting in silence afterwards going, "Huh. Wow. They went to interesting places with that." Not, "Where's the restroom?"

I listed films I thought of as cerebral regardless of actual quality, however, whatever you think of Minority Report, compared to the great majority of SF on the screen, its is a "thinking" man's film...I have also seen SF lit writers and futurists mention Minority Report as one of the great speculative films of our age, on a morality level, technological level, etc. I will always include it as one of the best of the genre of the last 40 years.

RAMA

 

[Klaus]

My working definition of sf is a story set in a future which can be extrapolated from ours, even if through a tenuous/bizarre set of circumstances, or of a past which can be similarly extrapolated to the present day. Fantasy is something which is set in a world different from ours in composition or in basic physical laws [magic works, etc.].

No definition is going to fit everything but it works for me most of the time.

 

[JarodRussell]

Moon and Solaris immediately came to mind.

LOL, the only thing cerebral about Solaris is that your mind keeps circling around the question "What the fuck were they smoking?!"

 

[Klaus]

^^did that mean the Soviet or US version lol?

 

[Mistral]

This film should be mentioned in every post, definitely one of the most thoughtful and intelligent sci-fi movies I have seen. Absolutely love it.

Agreed-so I quoted you.

Gattaca is, to me, "cerebral" scifi. Minority Report is not. I use Eddie Izzard's inadvertent definition: when he talks about American movies in Dressed to Kill he makes great fun of the explosions, riveting action and the shoveling of popcorn into one's mouth.
Cerebral science fiction is the stuff that has me thinking so hard I forget to eat the popcorn.

I'm not saying you can't have an explosion and still remain cerebral-Children of Men does that nicely-but the differences between I Am Legend and When The Wind Blows are enormous. A cerebral movie leaves me sitting in silence afterwards going, "Huh. Wow. They went to interesting places with that." Not, "Where's the restroom?"

I listed films I thought of as cerebral regardless of actual quality, however, whatever you think of Minority Report, compared to the great majority of SF on the screen, its is a "thinking" man's film...I have also seen SF lit writers and futurists mention Minority Report as one of the great speculative films of our age, on a morality level, technological level, etc. I will always include it as one of the best of the genre of the last 40 years.

RAMA

My impression of Minority Report was of an action film-but its been a few years. Perhaps I should go back and rewatch.