Can Hollywood Make a Good SF Film?

Great Debates
1

I suppose Great Debates is the best location for this post.

Those of you who have been reading SF for more than a few decades, and/or have read SF from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, are surely aware of the improvement in literary quality of the best stories over the last 70 years. Note that I am referring to the best stories; there is still a lot of crap being sold today. Sturgeon’s Law still holds: 90% of SF is crap… as well as 90% of everything else. Still, the ideas and characterization of the SF of 2000 have improved over that of 1930.

So why hasn’t the SF in Hollywood movies advanced over the last half-century? Sure, the visual effects are better, but the plots are the same tired old 1930’s stories. We still are shown bug-eyed monsters attacking humans, humans attacking bug-eyed monsters, scientists going where man was not meant to go, etc.

There have been a few intelligent SF movies, for example ‘Charlie’ or ‘Solaris’, but they seem either to be non-Hollywood movies, or else made in the 1960’s or 1970’s on a low budget. As for ‘2001’ or ‘Contact’, yes, they are not bad, but they certainly are not as good as the best SF.

Is it simply that Hollywood has decided that there are too few intelligent SF-reading movie-goers to make a profitable film, or do they honestly think that ‘Event Horizen’ and ‘Supernova’ are the whole of SF?

Bill

2

Well GW, it depends on what you think qualifies as “good.” If you mean that it has to deal with big issues be pretty cerebral, or be “arty”, then I doubt you will find too many good sci-fi movies out there. “Blade Runner” maybe. But if the aim of a movie is merely to entertain well without being glaringly stupid, then there are films that are credible. “Jurassic Park” was one, as well as “The Andromeda Strain”.

3

Well, they did make a movie version of Asimov’s “Nightfall”; I haven’t seen it but heard it wasn’t good. “Gattaca” received good reviews from both SF fans and movie critics, haven’t seen that one either. I think I might be contributing to the problem. I like good SF reading, then I go spend my money on “Armageddon.”

4

Gilligan wrote:

“Wasn’t good” doesn’t go nearly far enough in describing that abyssmal piece of New Age bullcrap. The Nightfall movie sucked. It sucked royally. It sucked on toast. It had as little to do with the actual Isaac Asimov short story “Nightfall” that it was allegedly based on, as the Reagan-era “Star Wars” Space Defense Initiative had to do with the Star Wars movies. Did I mention that it sucked?
As far as good SF films go, I have four words: 2001: A Space Odyssey.

5

Has anyone else heard that Harlan Ellison wrote a script for ‘I, Robot’? I flipped through it at the book store… looked quite good. Way better than ‘Bicentennial Man’, which, while not a good movie, stayed fairly close to the short story. Actually, considering the box office for that movie, I think that we have an answer to the OP. The audience will not sit for something that doesn’t have an exploding car or nude scene every 15 minutes.

Bill

6

[hijack]
My favorite SF film is one I’ve never seen completely.

It gets discussed at film societies, but usually after running 10-15 minutes of it.

It was a German B&W, silent era, which had a statue of a stout burgher from a clock tower come to life.
He was still stone-colored however, but 10 foot tall.

Anyone know the name? Or the character name? I could look it up from that, I think.
[/hijack]
…Sorry… you were saying…?

7

‘The Golem’ rings a bell… checking… directed by Paul Wegener in 1920.

Bill

8

The pun was unintentional.

Bill

9

Great question, Groundskeeper. We went a few rounds on this topic in the Heinlein Books and Movies. That thread started as a disussion about whether there could be a good film made from Robert A. Heinlein’s works, but later expanded out to the question of good SF films. Note that in the message board software conversion, the order and coding of the posts got a bit screwed up.

My general opinion on the matter is that SF is really about ideas – questions of what will happen to human socal interactions in a society with different technological attributes. Film, and particularly Hollywood film, is just not a really good medium to explore ideas in this manner.

Rather than go on at length, I’ll refer you to my posts (and the posts of others) in the Heinlein thread.

10

[re-hijack]
Thanks, Groundskeeper Willie, I can’t find the one you said, but I have two others that it might be which are available to rent from Reel.com.

Der Golem (1915)
Der Golem und die Tänzerin (1917)

I like videotape better than film for silents anyway, since you can pause to check the caption translations.
[/re-hijack]

11

In case the point wasn’t driven home enough, here’s a review of Nightfall.

12

MaxTorque wrote:

Hey, warn us before letting us use that link! I had to wipe the vomit off my keyboard and monitor! Speaking of Asimov’s fiction, though, how about the original Foundation series? Seeing that ‘The Lord of the Ring’ is being made into a movie trilogy, could it be that some studio… nah, forget it. Although it would * easily* better ‘Battlefield Earth’, for what it’s worth.

Bill

13

I’m generally pretty much put off by Hollywood science fiction movies, too, but there have been several good ones in the past(2001, Forbidden Planet, Day the Earth Stood Still, etc.). You seem to be looking for newer movies, however I agree that most science fiction films have been awful – Sturgeon’s Law in action – but there have been a few very good movies in the past few years. They’ve often taken me by surprise, because my expectations were so low.
The Terminator
Robocop (which owed a lot to the Frederick Pohl/C.M. Kornbluth books)
The Hidden (which owes a debt to Hal Clement’s “Needle”)
The Matrix
Gattaca
Aliens
2010 (I’ll argue this case – especially if you take out the voice-overs)
Star Trek IV (I’m allowed to like a light touch now and then)
Creator
There are also movis I’ve liked aspects of, even if the entire experience was a disappointment. Dune, The Abyss, even Starship Troopers.

There’s no fundamental reason that Hollywood can’t make a good SF movie. It’s even possible to make one with broad audience appeal. I’d love to see Harlan Ellson’s screenplay for Asimov’s “I, Robot” filmed. Or a faithful adaptation (for once) of Fredric Brown’s “Arena”. Unfortunately, it’s very eas fo a project to go off the rails, and there’s no shortage of horror stories about this. Read Heilein’s account of the making of Destnation Moon. Or read the screenwriter’s account of making The Puppet Masters, and you’ll see how much worse it could have been. Or Harry Harrison writing about “Soylent Green”. Or Ellison on “City on the Edge of Forever”, or “Starlost”, or just about anything else of his.

14

“Good sci-fi” means different things to different people.

I think 2001 was one of the better films coming out of Hollywood. I won’t argue it’s as good as written sci-fi, but it was (IMHO) a great film, especially given when it was made. Not only does it require actual thought and viewer interpretation (something Hollywood generally seems terrified of), but it remains one of the only films to even attempt to approximate realistic space flight.

I also think the Matrix was a good movie, and Stargate at least wasn’t bad. There have been others.

It’s probably hard to make sci-fi movies be as good as written sci-fi, so if your idea of good sci-fi comes from the best literature, I think you’ll be hard pressed to find films to match.

Hollywood also tends to make what sells. Star Wars may not be more than a so-so film glorified with special effects and explosions, but everybody and his uncle has seen it 47 times and bought the video. The Spice Girls’ also outsells Beethoven. I’ve long since given up trying to understand popular tastes. Times change; today’s audiences demand continuous instant gratification and spoon-fed plots. Given those constraints, I think movies like The Matrix have done as good a job as could be expected.

15

I’m just finishing up a class over here in college land called 'Classics of Science Fiction". Just recently, we were asked to rate all the movies that we’ve seen in class, explaining why we did or did not like them, and then recommending one to be dropped and a replacement for it. The movies we’ve seen were:

The Matrix
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
2001
Gattaca (I was out sick when we were supposed to see this)
Blade Runner
and also saw the episode of the X-files called “Home”, but that wasn’t an official ‘film’.
And despite the fact that we are mostly typical slackers, we mostly chose the Matrix to be dumped, but no one could decide on a replacement. Any ideas?

(I think Gattaca and Blade Runner are mostly up there because we were reading their equivalents, Beggars in Spain and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)

16

The Raven Wrote:

I would recomment ‘Charly’, based on ‘Flowers for Algernon’ by Daniel Keye (is that right? - brain lock). It’s the story of Charlie, a mentally retarded young man who is given an experimental treatment to increase his IQ… I won’t say any more, but this is one of the best true SF movies that I’ve seen. So they CAN be made.

Bill

17

MaxTorque wrote:

Hey hey hey! Whadaya know! Another fan of Bad Movie Night! :slight_smile:

18

And speaking of SF films based on books that tried to be true to their original, the 1984 production of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was pretty darned faithful, too.

19

Why can’t Hollywood make a good Sci-fi movie? 'Cuz they’re too Hollywood, and there are things that NEED to be included to make a good movie (their thinking, not mine).

Case in point: Starship Troopers. Even though that was quite unlike the original premise, it would have been all right if not for one thing… the first half of it. Had they removed all that “Beverly Hills 90210” crap, the movie might not have flopped so royally.

I think the last great Sci-fi was “Terminator 2”. I loved the effects, I loved the explosions… but I also loved the story, and the presentation.

“Aliens” also comes high on the my list (although “Alien3” bit and “Alien: Resurrection” was a total pooch-screw). “Gattaca” was amazing, but very intellectualized, which may explain why it never caught on big. “Stargate” had a very nice premise, and actually was made into an entertaining TV show.

“Virus” sucked. “Wing Commander” sucked (though the games, which came out first, kicked major ass).

FINALLY… answering the original question… yes, Hollywood CAN make a good sci-fi, but usually don’t. A lot of modern sci-fi movies rely on graphics as the backbone of the movie, rather than having a great story and then throwing in some amazing graphics to help the story along. The special effects in “Virus” were amazing… but the story was complete bunk.

In my opinion, there are too many gimmicks that Hollywood uses… there’s always gotta be a romantic side-plot, the hero always gets hurt really bad and almost dies once or twice, the bad guy always has to be so much stronger and faster, forcing the good guys to rely on brains, one of the non-important good guys has to bite the dust… (Tracer, feel free to add your pet-peeve Hollywood gimmick to my list)…

20

I must have very unusual tastes indeed. Whenever people talk about Science Fiction movies, I’d have to say 99% of them list 2001: A Space Oddysey as one of the best ever.

Yet I think it was boring, weirdo, pointless, showy crap. (standard Kubrick, in other words) It dragged on, it didn’t move me at all, I really didn’t care what happened. It had no excitement, no real sense of tension. Not to me, anyway.

I like several of the other movies most people cite, and they aren’t always action packed blockbuster Star Wars James Cameron Paul Verhoeven movies. Gattaca was quite good for instance, and I liked The Day The Earth Stood Still.

I guess I have very particular expectations from SF (like entertainment) and Kubrick rarely delivers.