I recently wrote a blog about the best films of the year and another blog about being disappointed by a lot of films this last year. In the second blog I ran through the list of films that I wished I had seen and one of them was Arrival. Well, I managed to see that film the other day and have to say it would certainly change my top ten of the year, right now I'd say number two after Rogue One. It's rather fitting that my two favourite films of the year are both science fiction, but drastically different films. I love science-fiction and when I think of my favourite ever films there are lots of sci-fi - Blade Runner, Alien, The Empire Strikes Back, Dr. Strangelove, Aliens. This blog is called Ninety Per Cent of Everything which is a reference to a quote defending the quality of science-fiction, basically that ninety per cent of it is shit, but it's equally true that ninety per cent of anything is shit.
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| Most convoluted rizla game ever |
There has been a habit of taking books, films, television shows that are science-fiction and refusing to call them that - many people do not consider 1984 science-fiction, even though it is about how technology effects a future world, the very definition of science-fiction. Dr. Strangelove, I film I've already mentioned as one of my favourites is according to Wikipedia is a "political satire black comedy film" with no mention of science fiction, to IMDB it is only a "comedy". Whilst the film is certainly a satire and comedy the film revolved around two pieces of technology that did not exist so I would argue it's science fiction. To many people it seems that a "classic" by definition cannot be science fiction, and science fiction that spoils that view is quietly re-categorised.
While I am very discerning when it comes to specific films, I love just about every type of science fiction. I love big space operas like Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy. I love clever, indie sci-fi like Moon or Ex Machina. I love dystopias from The Hunger Games to Children of Men. I would categorise superhero films as a subgenre of science fiction (which I understand to be a somewhat controversial position) as they usually involve technology that does not exist.
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| Guardians of the Galaxy - enjoyably over the top |
Arrival is very much the clever big idea sort of science fiction film, it's not about space battles or exploding cities. The setup is actually very much like Independence Day (a sci-fi film I don't like), where a number of huge spaceships have arrived, hovering, perhaps menacingly a short distance above the ground.
But that really is where the two films depart - it seems that the aliens wanted to talk. The US government assembled top scientific experts, specifically linguist Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and physicist Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) to help them understand what is going on. Why are the aliens here? What do they want? Are they a threat? A lot of characters talk about what happened when the Europeans arrived in North America and Australia, how the more scientifically advanced group drove the other group to near extinction, will the same thing happen with the aliens? The film is about a lot of things and like all good alien films it's more about the nature of human beings as it is aliens. Amy Adams' performance was brilliant and it's very much her film. Not giving anyway any spoilers I am looking forward to seeing it again to better appreciate the clever things that are going on in the film.
I hope to see Arrival getting a lot of nominations for awards but I'm prepared to be disappointed. The Oscars have a long history of snubbing science fiction. Heath Ledger won an Oscar for his performance in The Dark Knight in 2009 but the film wasn't nominated for Best Picture despite being hailed by fans and critics as a great success. Looking at the other nominations that year it was certainly much better than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button if nothing else. The following year in what might have been a response to people asking where was The Dark Knight's Oscar nomination the list of nominees was raised to ten with cult sci-fi hit District 9 and sci-fi blockbuster Avatar getting nominations alongside more predictable Oscar fare.
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| District 9 - One of the films that benefited from wider Oscar nominations |
In my opinion Christoper Nolan is one of the best directors working today but has not received the awards and critical acclaim he should have done because he has largely done sci-fi. A case in point, there is already Oscar buzz around his next film, Dunkirk, a big budget World War Two film about the evacuation of Dunkirk almost as if the moment he moves away from sci-fi people see his films as Oscar-worthy. Looking at Christoper Nolan's back catalogue the majority of his work is either sci-fi or has strong sci-fi elements, before Dunkirk only Memento and Insomnia are not science fiction. The Dark Knight trilogy of Batman films are the high watermark of superhero films, Inception is about using technology to enter dreams and Interstellar is a sci-fi epic of space exploration, time travel and using technology to save mankind. In my opinion Christopher Nolan has not made a bad film, something very few directors can say.
Looking back on the winner for Best Picture Oscar, I went back to 1950 to find a sci-fi winner and couldn't do it. The closest to sci-fi was it's genre cousin, fantasy, when Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won, which was surely an award for the astonishing achievement of the complete trilogy rather than that single film. So why do the Oscars seem to hate science-fiction? Well, I don't think they take it seriously, presumably for the ridiculous reason that it's about stuff that isn't real. The Oscars had no problem rewarding Titantic, which while despite being based on real events was one of the least plausible films I've ever seen, which must be something of a challenge. This is even worse in television - plot devices that the worst sci-fi writer would be ashamed of are trotted out regularly in soaps and dramas with little said about their realness or characters so unbelievable they would make Zaphod Beeblebrox look innocuous, but Doctor Who is dismissed by many because "that couldn't happen in real life".
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| The comparatively believable Zaphod Beeblebrox |
What many people don't appreciate about science fiction is that it's not really about the future or other planets or aliens, it's usually about this time, this place and us. The reimagined Battlestar Galactica had more to say about the War on Terror than any other programme on American television, writing episodes about suicide bombings, foreign occupation, torture, civil rights, religious freedom and religious extremism, topics most non-sci-fi wouldn't dare go near. By setting it in another time or place gives writers a freedom to discuss these issues. One of the most famous examples of this was an episode of The Twilight Zone about aliens infiltrating America and how a small town tore itself apart with accusations and witch-hunts, all the while the aliens watched from outside the town, barely lifting a finger and letting paranoia do their work for them. The episode was clearly about issues closer to home in America, with paranoia against communist infiltrators hitting fever pitch.
Arrival clearly has a message about human cooperation and trust, discussing how almost by default powerful countries don't trust each other, too concerned about losing their own advantage. At a time when the person poised to become the most powerful man in the world seems eager to restart the Cold War arms race it's something to think about and shows the power of science fiction and I suspect there is already a sci-fi film in the works about an insanely arrogant and ignorant politician elected to run the universe.
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