This leads me to question what science fiction really is as a genre, and how genre is defined. A film set a long time ago can be catogorised as a 'period film' but is likely also a part of another genre, comedy, thriller etc. So I have to question whether or not being set in the future is enough to make something a sci-fi film.
"Genre (pronounced /ˈʒɑːnrə/, also /ˈdʒɑːnrə/; from French, genre French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ʁ], "kind" or "sort", from Latin: genus (stem gener-), Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature as well as various other forms of art or culture, e.g., music, based on some loose set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones are discontinued. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions"
Moving on wikinformed to takle these questions;
Sci-fi is known and understood today through its stylistic history of settings and narritives, the science fiction genre has seen a plethora of incredible and varied film masterpieces. Perhaps a misunderstood child in the genre family household but the directors who visit and use the members of the family to make films have often used his mysteriousness to great end. (most strained analogy ever...)
Science Fiction Greats:
Moon
District 9
(im going to come back to this one again later)
The Thing
Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind
Metropolis
A Clockwork Orange
Aliens
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Star Wars: Original Trilogy (the title says GREATS)
Blade Runner
Its clear from the examples above (of course there are a great deal more great [and possibly greater {not greater than Blade Runner} ] examples of science fiction)
I was simply trying to make the point that it is a uniquely broadly approached genre, with films of vastly different nature being produced within. In some respects it simply affords a director or author to create environments, situations and characters which exist outside the current scope of possibility. This is not simply a disregard for logic and sense however as any good sci-fi just swaps out real world physics and logic for a consistent and believable set of physics, logic and technology postulated to exist in the future by the author or director.
Before I get back to District 9
more about Starship Troopers - "Starship Troopers is one of the greatest anti-war films ever made in my opinion, up there with many others. This is something that not many seem to recognize considering that, when it was first released, most critics seemed to have been somewhat disturbed by the fact that the `good guys’ resembled Nazis and that was about as far as they went before blowing it off as just another shoot-em-up and proceeded to sharpen their knives."
I've discovered this quote and a few other pages expressing a similar interpretation, this was interesting to me as I found the futuristic setting coupled with the seemingly idealic (personally anyway) earth future brought the 'war' aspect of the film into better light, and there is no doupbt that the film glamourises the violence of battle along with the heroism of erm... heroes. [palm on face]
"you trying to be a hero, watkins?"
"trying to kill some bugs, sir!"
"trying to kill some bugs, sir!"
I also got a strong sense of a 'Them and Us' mentality which would have been prevelant in WWII films especially those produced at the time, depicting the entirety of human kind regardless of gender and race, acting as one, pit against a deadly enemy.
It is weird how the good guys look like nazi's I don't really have the time or desire to get into that but these guys really did if you are intrigued.
Starship Troopers or Nazi stormtroopers?
Now to talk about District 9
I found this to be one of the most intense open and infact rather brutal films I have seen in a long time. As a Southafrican the story it tells is a little maybe a little closer to home but I think most educated people understand the history it is so transparently retelling and it's lack of restraint has caused a little controversy
I think the film HAD to be in the sci-fi genre for it to have attained its critical success and to perhaps educate a new generation of past injustices which would not be well forgotten. If anyone hasn't understood it or not scene it or just don't know what point im trying to make;
(District 9 mirrors apartheid) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_under_apartheid
The sci-fi trope of aliens, is used in District 9 allow the story the director wanted to tell an analogy for a countries dark history to be told with unrivalled impunity. There are no extra terrestrial focus groups.
Possible alien visitation seems to have become more and more acceptable in the mind of the audience perhaps as technology develops and we become more intelligent or maybe just through the over use of this particular science fiction trope.
I think it is evident that a science fiction setting or situation can be used within a film of any genre.
(an incredible styalised and serious work of science fiction cinema)
A little more on genre before I go:
Definitions of genre on the Web:
- a kind of literary or artistic work
- writing style: a style of expressing yourself in writing
- music genre: an expressive style of music
- a class of art (or artistic endeavor) having a characteristic form or technique
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn - A genre (, also ; from French, ' , "kind" or "sort", from Latin: ' (stem gener-), Greek: genos, '''') is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art or utterance. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre - A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(music) - Genre magazine was a New York city-based monthly periodical written for gay men. It was owned by gay press publisher Window Media, a subsidiary of Avalon Equity Partners.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(magazine) - Genre is a 1996 Live-action/animated short film by animator Don Hertzfeldt, his second student film, preceded by Ah, L'Amour (1995).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(animated_film) - Video game genres are used to categorize video games based on their gameplay interaction rather than visual or narrative differences. A video game genre is defined by a set of gameplay challenges. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(gaming) - A kind; a stylistic category or sort, especially of literature or other artworks
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/genre - Genres - This is a list of the commercially-relevant genres in modern popular music. Styles that are not contemporary or commercially marketed in substantial numbers have been excluded, in accordance with the following criteria: #Art music: classical music and opera. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genres_(popular_music) - Style of film dictated by particular thematic conventions.
aso.gov.au/about/glossary/ - A literary form; examples of literary genres are tragedy, comedy, epic, and novel. Generic classifications may appear simple on the surface, but one faces serious practical problems when one tries to define terms such as comedy and tragedy with reference to an actual corpus of literary works. ...
courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellibst/lsl01-tm.html - The class or category of an object when considered as an intellectual work.
www.cs.cornell.edu/wya/DigLib/MS1999/Glossary.html - a collective grouping or general category of literary works; a large class or group that consists of individual works of literature that share common attributes (eg, similar themes, characters, plots, or styles). Examples: drama, epic, lyric poem, novel, etc.
condor.depaul.edu/~dsimpson/awtech/lexicon.html
