Third Type of SF Film and Why we are Interested in SF

While reading the book Screening Space (2004), by Vivian Sobchack I noticed that she mentioned a third type of SF film. There is no name for the type of SF film, but it seeks a purpose. Basically if a movie falls under the category of the third type, such as Jurassic Park (1993) or the example given in Vivian’s book, The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), then the film has both as quoted by Sobchack, “visual optimism and visual pessimism” (Sobchack 2004 137). When a film displays both optimism and pessimism it lets the viewer have a sense of hope even though most of the movie displays chaos and in general a dystopian world. For example in Jurassic Park (1993), at the beginning the creation of dinosaurs is thought of as a great feat for the human race, but is also looked upon by a select few as a mistake. Then as most of us know, later on in the movie the dinosaurs get lose and wreak havoc among the island at which they are stationed. Jurassic Park (1993) relates to present day as if we are the dinosaurs and the human race is wreaking havoc among the earth using up all of its resources, polluting it more and more as every day passes us by. By the end of the film the dinosaurs are eventually contained and safety is restored to the island, maybe humans need to be contained before all of our resources are gone.

By next year the world population is predicted to go above seven billion and at some point the earth is not going to be able to support the human race. There are already a few places around the world that are over populated, such as China where they have instituted a policy that couples can only have two children maximum. The pollution is very bad in China, to the point where people can easily distinguish the difference in air quality. Eventually the whole world will be like China and the human race will die off because there will not be enough food to support the overgrown population. Our visual optimistic view is that eventually we can create enough ways to not use gasoline or diesel fuel in order to slow down pollution at a worldwide rate and maybe come up with a way to not use as many resources as we are right now.

Relating back to the original terms “science” and “fiction” as stated in Screening Space (2004), “The satisfaction comes from seeing the visual integration of actual and impossible in the same frame” (Sobchack 2004 141). One of the reasons humans are so interested in SF films is because these movies portray what could possibly be our future and some of the images are not ideal. Terminator (1984) is a great example of a dystopian image of our future when our greatest advancements turn on us and create a dystopian world. SF films really wake us up and bring us back to reality with some of the disastrous images that our future could hold.     

Technological Advancements

The posthuman body in the Xenogenesis trilogy written by Octavia Butler can be compared to the present day world. After having read the chapter about this trilogy which includes humans basically being forced to change in a way they do not want to, I realized how this problem can be compared to our way of life right now. The main character Lilith “feels she has become nothing more than a “useful [tool],” an “experimental animal” (Baccolini and Moylan 2003, 97). She has her reasons for the way she feels. The Oankali are a superior alien race who has much greater technological advancements than humans do. They are the ones who force humans to “change for the better” in the alien’s eyes. Lilith has cancer, but the Oankali cure it, “For instance, her genetic tendency to cancer has been “repaired,” but she feels this to have been a violation” (Baccolini and Moylan 2003, 97). The Oankali forcing change upon the human race relates to our world today because we are going through the same idea of “change” right now. Many people think that improving our technology is a fantastic feat, and it is. With these advancements though, comes a forced change in the way of life, which some people are completely against.

The majority of the group that is against change in technology is the elderly or just older people in general. They are so use to the ways back in the 20^th century that life has become much more complicated for them now. The large leap has been forced upon humans and we have no choice but to adapt even if we are against the idea. If you are not technologically savvy in present day, then many problems will arise. Everywhere we go and everything we do involves technology, including buying groceries, paying bills, using the internet for almost everything, and most of all getting higher paying jobs that involve technology. People in their forties and fifties are going back to school to get a degree, just so they can get the qualifications in order to become employed at a decent paying job. Life is not easy right now with all of the change that is being forced on the human race, not just with technology, but also with the economy and how bad it is right now.

In my mind the Oankali represent the change in our lives today and the main character, Lilith represents the vulnerability and disagreement of the human race. Even though her cancer is cured she basically states that she is not happy with herself just because she feels used. I am sure many people today feel “used” when they purchase a product and it does not work properly or it breaks within a few days. As if the company was just selling the product knowing there would be a flaw and they just wanted to test it. The only way that change will progress, is for failure to come along with it during the journey of exploring endless possibilities.  

Lyman Tower Sargent and Pat Cadigan

Lyman Tower Sargent has a great opinion on what dystopia means to him. "non-existent society described In considerable detail and normally located in time and space that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as considerably worse than society in which that reader lived" (Baccolini and Moylan 2003, 69). What the quote is basically saying is that the point of most science fiction movies and literature is to portray how much worse the future could become than what we already make it out to be. I have seen many different movies that fit in to this statement. For example, The Terminator (1984) displays one of the worst possibilities of our future and what it holds for the human race. The main idea of the film is how we rely so much on machines, which in today’s world is very true, and the technology gets so out of hand that it eventually becomes more intelligent than the human race.  Intelligence leads to power which then brings domination over humans and planet earth. The beginning of the extinction of the human race is called “Judgment Day”. The theory of humans being overrun by machines is a very valid theory just because of how advanced the technology already is to this day and how fast the advancements keep coming. Every year that passes by, the speed of advancement is increasing, doubling, tripling, quadrupling, etc. At the rate it is happening, I do not see any reason why we could not take the film seriously. Improving our electronics has many different advantages to it, but there are two sides to everything.

            People have different opinions for almost everything and Pat Cadigan has something very interesting that she states. "Human beings are neither utopian nor dystopian so that’s what I choose to reflect in my books" (Baccolini and Moylan 2003, 70). She backs her statement up by then saying "I don’t think I’m dystopian at all. No more than I’m utopian" (Baccolini and Moylan 2003, 70). To me what Cadigan is trying to say is that even though we are creating new technology in order to create a utopia, the crime rates are still the same or going up. In other words there is no dystopia or utopia because humans are stuck in the middle. If by some chance it is not what she is getting at then it is what I believe. There is no way out because the world’s population is just too large in order to get everyone to cooperate. If by some miracle people could work things out and get all of the evil-doers to stop and work together to be productive then maybe we could create a utopia where everything is perfect or at least closer to being perfect. The prisons would not be over crowded which would lead to a much better economy. Prisons are one of the main reasons the U.S. is in debt because all of the tax payer’s money is going to feeding and housing the prisoners. If war did not play a factor in today’s world then humans could focus on more important things like creating less pollution and spreading the wealth among everyone. Instead there is poverty all around our planet and the environment is getting worse and worse. At the rate we are going in current day, nothing will be able to turn around and start going in the positive direction.