Last night, I was treated to a special advance sneak preview of a motion picture that's due to be released next summer.
This isn't the first one of these such events I've had the good fortune to attend, but -- for the record -- I do believe this is the first Science Fiction release I've been able to see in this format. I've seen comedies and dramas -- usually the big tent-pole-style ones which studios want to promote come Academy Awards seasons -- so even though this wasn't "a first" per se I can happily say it was "a first" for SciFi and Fantasy. And because I'm bound to the obligatory confidentiality clause, I won't be able to enlighten you as to any of the particulars of the film, but I can assure you that the flick is everything mainstream audiences have come to expect from a potential summer blockbuster: it has a big star at the center, it filled with mostly non-stop action from start-to-finish, and it sports some memorable one-liners and comic relief to help make it all both go-down-easy and also promote repeat business.
However -- without getting into any of the particulars -- one of the things that bothered me about the story is something that I do believe has plagued Science Fiction films for quite some time; and I thought I'd spout off just a little about that this morning in this space.
Namely, true originality is long dead.
I don't say that to insult any motion picture, screenwriter, or director. After all, a wise man once postulated that in all of storytelling there are only -- what was it? -- seven plots. Everything that we're presented ends up being some combination of said plots, and the main premise ends up being tweaked in any number of little ways. A + B + C has always been on the drawing board; but how about we make A a female instead of the traditional male, swap out B for comic relief; and voila! A whole new world! If nothing else, producers hope viewers aren't watching closely enough to understand that you've seen it all before, and imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Blah blah blah. And blah.
Again, I don't mean this as a gripe. It's only an observation.
When Star Wars came out in 1977 and in so, so, so many ways revolutionized the way Hollywood thought about the summer movie season, every other studio under the sun raced to tap into that magic. For roughly the next five years, audiences were treated to SciFi release after SciFi release; and as much as I may've wanted to find fault with that trend (critics lamented it occasionally) I didn't -- as a viewer -- because each successive release changed up the formula enough that the flicks seemed fresh. True, there were knock-offs, but serious SciFi enthusiasts could see fairly significant narrative differences between Star Wars and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Buck Rogers In The 25th Century shared a bit in common with Flash Gordon but not so much that audiences tuned them out. Battlestar Galactica staked out its own territory in the distant stars; The Black Hole took us to the edge of the event horizon; and even The Last Starfighter dished up some hometown charm by way of its tiny star saga.
These films -- while obviously derivative of a single source -- tried only to emulate the basic formula. They didn't simply repackage one central theme around a new hero; instead, they took the central figure (or figures) in different directions. Sure, the end result may be that a whole lot of Death Stars were blown up, but that hero's journey was respected, given ample exploration, and provided a destination worth the ninety-minute-plus engagement.
These days?
Meh.
I hate sounding like a disenfranchised viewer because that's far from the case. I truly love Science Fiction: the good, the bad, and the ugly. This doesn't mean that I embrace every single program that comes out of the replicators -- I'm arguably more discriminating than most I read on the Information Superhighway. I can appreciate big films, and -- far more than most -- I appreciate small films, so much so that I'm far more prone to recommend them (at a risk) because they tend to be chocked full of little surprises that pay off in bigger ways than the traditional blockbusters. I accept that there's good and bad in every film -- they're all far from perfect -- and I try to celebrate what I find of merit, be it performances, effects, dialogue, or even quality production value.
Still, too many releases suffer from what I saw on the screen last night. Typically, this phenomenon is that it's easy to see what inspirations a screenwriter has drawn from for the purposes of crafting his or her own vision. (Again, this doesn't mean it's bad; it's just so obvious it distracts from the total experience.) We're given a leading man who's doing what he's done before. He's being set out on a mission audiences have already seen him embark upon and succeed with (maybe even multiple times). And then we're delivered a script which draws heavily upon previous Science Fiction and Fantasy releases -- some of them even being fairly current -- and they're mixed in the scriptwriting blender loosely ... so loosely that we can see whole chunks of ideas from these other films merely being inserted in a new production.
Sure, I love Jurassic Park. Sure, I love Aliens. Sure, I love Edge Of Tomorrow. Sure, I love Battle Los Angeles. Sure, I love Back To The Future. Sure, I love Starship Troopers. Sure, I love Blade Runner. Sure, I love Escape From New York. Sure, I love The Matrix. And, sure, I love The Thing. (I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get the point.)
But I don't love them so much that I want to see every single film evolve from them.
1988's Die Hard spawned such a trend in filmdom, and I'm sure those of you old enough will appreciate this. Die Hard -- an unquestioned action classic -- ended up being so powerful that studios quickly sought to copy the formula; and for the next twenty years audiences were treated to Die-Hard-On-A-Plane, Die-Hard-On-A-Train, Die-Hard-On-A-Bus, etc. Some of them were good, some of them were bad, but they were all still essentially Die Hard, dependent upon the formula, making the formula the story and not the actual people, places, and events within the film.
Science Fiction, by contrast, has always been best at exploring ideas. Time travel can be good, or it can be bad. Space exploration brings risk, or it can be universally rewarding. What if we're all living inside some simulation? Some may choose the red pill; some will happily take the blue. While there's nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from what's come before, that inspiration shouldn't be so omniscient and omnipresent that it overwhelms the story. Have an idea. Create a conflict around that idea. Send a hero in to explore the idea while resolving the conflict. But without an idea at the center of the house of cards it's all bound to fall apart upon closer inspection or, at the very least, before the credits roll.
Did I see a good film last night?
Oh, yes. It was perfectly entertaining.
But ... with a little extra polish ...it -- like all of Science Fiction -- could be so much more.
This isn't the first one of these such events I've had the good fortune to attend, but -- for the record -- I do believe this is the first Science Fiction release I've been able to see in this format. I've seen comedies and dramas -- usually the big tent-pole-style ones which studios want to promote come Academy Awards seasons -- so even though this wasn't "a first" per se I can happily say it was "a first" for SciFi and Fantasy. And because I'm bound to the obligatory confidentiality clause, I won't be able to enlighten you as to any of the particulars of the film, but I can assure you that the flick is everything mainstream audiences have come to expect from a potential summer blockbuster: it has a big star at the center, it filled with mostly non-stop action from start-to-finish, and it sports some memorable one-liners and comic relief to help make it all both go-down-easy and also promote repeat business.
However -- without getting into any of the particulars -- one of the things that bothered me about the story is something that I do believe has plagued Science Fiction films for quite some time; and I thought I'd spout off just a little about that this morning in this space.
Namely, true originality is long dead.
I don't say that to insult any motion picture, screenwriter, or director. After all, a wise man once postulated that in all of storytelling there are only -- what was it? -- seven plots. Everything that we're presented ends up being some combination of said plots, and the main premise ends up being tweaked in any number of little ways. A + B + C has always been on the drawing board; but how about we make A a female instead of the traditional male, swap out B for comic relief; and voila! A whole new world! If nothing else, producers hope viewers aren't watching closely enough to understand that you've seen it all before, and imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Blah blah blah. And blah.
Again, I don't mean this as a gripe. It's only an observation.
When Star Wars came out in 1977 and in so, so, so many ways revolutionized the way Hollywood thought about the summer movie season, every other studio under the sun raced to tap into that magic. For roughly the next five years, audiences were treated to SciFi release after SciFi release; and as much as I may've wanted to find fault with that trend (critics lamented it occasionally) I didn't -- as a viewer -- because each successive release changed up the formula enough that the flicks seemed fresh. True, there were knock-offs, but serious SciFi enthusiasts could see fairly significant narrative differences between Star Wars and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Buck Rogers In The 25th Century shared a bit in common with Flash Gordon but not so much that audiences tuned them out. Battlestar Galactica staked out its own territory in the distant stars; The Black Hole took us to the edge of the event horizon; and even The Last Starfighter dished up some hometown charm by way of its tiny star saga.
These films -- while obviously derivative of a single source -- tried only to emulate the basic formula. They didn't simply repackage one central theme around a new hero; instead, they took the central figure (or figures) in different directions. Sure, the end result may be that a whole lot of Death Stars were blown up, but that hero's journey was respected, given ample exploration, and provided a destination worth the ninety-minute-plus engagement.
These days?
Meh.
I hate sounding like a disenfranchised viewer because that's far from the case. I truly love Science Fiction: the good, the bad, and the ugly. This doesn't mean that I embrace every single program that comes out of the replicators -- I'm arguably more discriminating than most I read on the Information Superhighway. I can appreciate big films, and -- far more than most -- I appreciate small films, so much so that I'm far more prone to recommend them (at a risk) because they tend to be chocked full of little surprises that pay off in bigger ways than the traditional blockbusters. I accept that there's good and bad in every film -- they're all far from perfect -- and I try to celebrate what I find of merit, be it performances, effects, dialogue, or even quality production value.
Still, too many releases suffer from what I saw on the screen last night. Typically, this phenomenon is that it's easy to see what inspirations a screenwriter has drawn from for the purposes of crafting his or her own vision. (Again, this doesn't mean it's bad; it's just so obvious it distracts from the total experience.) We're given a leading man who's doing what he's done before. He's being set out on a mission audiences have already seen him embark upon and succeed with (maybe even multiple times). And then we're delivered a script which draws heavily upon previous Science Fiction and Fantasy releases -- some of them even being fairly current -- and they're mixed in the scriptwriting blender loosely ... so loosely that we can see whole chunks of ideas from these other films merely being inserted in a new production.
Sure, I love Jurassic Park. Sure, I love Aliens. Sure, I love Edge Of Tomorrow. Sure, I love Battle Los Angeles. Sure, I love Back To The Future. Sure, I love Starship Troopers. Sure, I love Blade Runner. Sure, I love Escape From New York. Sure, I love The Matrix. And, sure, I love The Thing. (I could go on and on, but I'm sure you get the point.)
But I don't love them so much that I want to see every single film evolve from them.
1988's Die Hard spawned such a trend in filmdom, and I'm sure those of you old enough will appreciate this. Die Hard -- an unquestioned action classic -- ended up being so powerful that studios quickly sought to copy the formula; and for the next twenty years audiences were treated to Die-Hard-On-A-Plane, Die-Hard-On-A-Train, Die-Hard-On-A-Bus, etc. Some of them were good, some of them were bad, but they were all still essentially Die Hard, dependent upon the formula, making the formula the story and not the actual people, places, and events within the film.
Science Fiction, by contrast, has always been best at exploring ideas. Time travel can be good, or it can be bad. Space exploration brings risk, or it can be universally rewarding. What if we're all living inside some simulation? Some may choose the red pill; some will happily take the blue. While there's nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from what's come before, that inspiration shouldn't be so omniscient and omnipresent that it overwhelms the story. Have an idea. Create a conflict around that idea. Send a hero in to explore the idea while resolving the conflict. But without an idea at the center of the house of cards it's all bound to fall apart upon closer inspection or, at the very least, before the credits roll.
Did I see a good film last night?
Oh, yes. It was perfectly entertaining.
But ... with a little extra polish ...it -- like all of Science Fiction -- could be so much more.
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