Alternate Takes 07.18.09: Science Fiction Films

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 07.18.2009

With Moon getting its limited release, Alternate Takes looks at three of the best pure science fiction films of all time...



Welcome to Week 61 of Alternate Takes. This week there was only one major release, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. (500) Days of Summer, the latest film starring Joseph Gordo-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel also got a limited release, but the closest place it is showing to me is Dallas, Texas. But another limited release finally made its way to Oklahoma and that is the basis for this week's column.

This week, the science fiction film Moon was finally released in Oklahoma. It tells the story of a man (Sam Rockwell), employed by a company that has reversed Earth's energy crisis. He is stationed at a lunar base with only a robot named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Two weeks before he is to return home to Earth, he begins to hallucinate and, after an accident, fears he will not be able to return home. He then faces an exact version of himself and must figure out what is happening so he can hopefully return home to his wife and child. It is a fantastic and original idea and is one of only a handful of pure science fiction films to be released in years. In this week's Alternate Takes, I am going to look at three of the most groundbreaking pure sci-fi films of the past forty years.


3. THE MATRIX
Directed by the Wachowski Brothers

Who would have ever thought Keanu Reeves would be involved in one of the most groundbreaking science fiction movies of our time? The closest he ever came prior to this was travelling in time as Ted "Theodore" Logan. But in 1999 a pseudo spiritual sci-fi movie was released by a brother tandem only known up to that time for a chick crime flick called Bound. While a lot of people were turned off at where the franchise went in the sequels, it is inarguable the original is still a fresh, creative masterwork.

The movie tells the story of free will in a world trapped in darkness. It owes a great debt of gratitude to Greek philosopher Plato whose Allegory of the Cave shares much in common with the theme of The Matrix. Plato's allegory imagines a group of people all chained up in a cave for their entire life, facing a blank wall. The people see shadows projected on the wall and start to ascribe forms to these shadows. This is as close as the prisoners ever get to seeing reality. He then explains the philosopher is the man who is able to be freed from the cave and comes to understand the shadows are not reality at all.

This is the main plot of The Matrix, with the philosopher Morpheus leading his crew in a battle against the computers who have made humans prisoners, living in "caves", facing a blank wall but believing that is their reality. Morpheus has a goal to free everyone from this false life and his savior is a man still living in that world named Neo.

The most telling moment of the film occurs when a member of Morpheus' crew, Cypher, betrays his comrades. While he is eating a steak, he explains why he chose to return to the false world, imprisoned by the computers, living a lie. He speaks about how great the steak tastes, as if it were real. Beauty and that joy does not exist in the real world so he would rather live a lie where he can remain blissfully happy. "You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss."

In the original allegory, it is asked "Wouldn't it be said of him that he went up and came back with his eyes corrupted, and that it's not even worth trying to go up? And if they were somehow able to get their hands on and kill the man who attempts to release and lead up, wouldn't they kill him?" That is the exact point of The Matrix. They are trying to save a world that may not even want to be saved, release people who would rather stay imprisoned. They are saviors trying to rescue a world content to live in its own ignorant bliss.

The movie has many fans. Joss Whedon called it his "number one" film at the time of its release, saying "it works on whatever level you want to bring it." Darren Aronofsky stated "The Wachowskis basically took all the great sci-fi ideas of the 20th century and rolled them into a delicious pop culture sandwich that everyone on the planet devoured." Roger Ebert gave it 3 stars, only criticizing the third acts reliance on action. It would be nominated for and win four Oscars (Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound and Best Editing). The American Film Institute ranked it #66 on their 100 Years...100 Thrills list. Empire Magazine ranked it 39th on their "500 Greatest Movies of All Time" list.


2. BLADE RUNNER
Directed by Ridley Scott

Blade Runner is the greatest adaptation of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, a man who might be the greatest sci-fi writer of his generation. Nine films have been made based on his work, with Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report among the better attempts. Blade Runner is adapted from the 1968 Dick novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

The novel centers around Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter of androids, while a subplot follows John Isidore, a dim man who befriends some of the androids. Deckard is tasked with retiring six escaped Nexus-6 androids, the latest and most advanced model. While most androids have no empathic sense, the new realistic humanoid androids are meant to make the reader question what actually defines a human.

In the film, replicants were created for menial labor on Earth's "off-world" colonies but after a replicant uprising, they were made illegal and a police force called Blade Runners were created to "retire" them. The plot focuses on a semi-retired Blade Runner, Rick Deckard, who is ordered to find some brutal recently-escaped replicants and "retire" them.

The best scene in the movie, and maybe the best scene I have ever seen in a science-fiction film, comes at the end when Deckard falls from a roof and hangs on for his life. The replicant he is hunting, Roy Batty, reaches down and grabs Deckard's hand, pulling him up and saving his life. Deckard is stunned at this selfless act by a replicant and it is clear there is more to them then just empty shelled robots. Then Deckard sat and watched as the replicant sat down to die. Batty's final lines says it all: "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

Philip Dick was never enthusiastic with the scripts he read for the adaptation and was prepared to hate it. However, when he went to a special screening he was floored. "I saw a segment of Douglas Trumbull's special effects," he said. "I recognized it immediately. It was my own interior world. They caught it perfectly." While Scott admitted he never read the novel before shooting the movie, Dick believed "the two reinforce each other, so that someone who started with the novel would enjoy the movie and someone who started with the movie would enjoy the novel."

At the time of its release, critics were split on the reaction with some criticizing its slow pacing while Roger Ebert praised its visuals but found the human story clichéd. However, when the movie was re-released in its Final Cut, Ebert changed his mind and placed it in his Great Movies list. The American Film Institute listed it as the 97th greatest film of all time and the sixth best science fiction film ever made. Empire Magazine voted it the best science fiction movie of all time. In 1993, it was chosen by the National Film Preservation Board for inclusion into the Library of Congress as a "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant film."


1. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

In 1964, Stanley Kubrick directed Dr. Strangelove, a movie he called a "nightmare satire." The movie destroyed the world to let man in on the big secret that they were destroying their world every day. Four years later, he created a movie that could not be any more different. 2001: A Space Odyssey is what Kubrick refers to as a "mythological documentary." It continued to create new worlds with the knowledge that maybe man is not the only intelligent form of life in the universe. While one movie is ultimately pessimistic, the other is eternally optimistic.

Much like every film Kubrick ever directed, 2001 was based on a literary work, a science-fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke. The book was developed concurrently with Kubrick's film and is based in part on various short stories, most notably "The Sentinel." It is difficult for some people to get through, forcing the viewer to think and consider what they are seeing. Very little dialogue is used, less than 40 minutes worth in the entire film, and not one word is spoken in the first thirty minutes. The film is impossible to comprehend for the less intelligent but pays off in spades for the discerning film viewer.

The most famous scene in the film is clearly the transition from the days of the cavemen to the future of 2001. The film shows the apemen walking on all fours, competing for food with other animals. It moves on to the "Dawn of Intelligence" where the apeman wields his first tool, a bone. This tool is used as the apeman continues to evolve, rising to his hind feet and then eventually using the bone as a weapon. The apeman is now the dominant species and as he throws his bone into the air we get the big transition as it morphs into a space vehicle in the year 2001. It is a transition not only visually effective, but also shows the continued progress of evolution as the apemen became dominant when they discovered new tools and then humans evolved through the development of new technology.

The movie settles into the relationship between astronauts on a spacecraft and their on board computer HAL 9000. The film is an allegory but remains open to interpretation and I have heard numerous ideas of what the final scene might have meant. Kubrick himself believed that was the point saying "You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film — and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level — but I don't want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he's missed the point."

Upon release it was a polarizing movie with Roger Ebert giving it 4 stars while Pauline Kael called it "monumentally unimaginative." It received three Oscar nominations (Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Screenplay) while winning one for Best Visual Effects. The American Film Institute ranked it number 22 in its 100 Years...100 Movies list. It currently ranks at #89 in the IMDB Top 250 (8.4) and is 96% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes. In 1981, it was chosen by the National Film Preservation Board for inclusion into the Library of Congress as a "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant film."