The best (and worst) genre ever: Science Fiction
So yet another science fiction bombs.
(Am I the only one who gets that sense that the decisions made in this movie were based off of “the cumulative research efforts of several months worth of focus-group testing to authoritatively prove what it is that draws people to movies”? I haven’t seen it, but just look at the stupid poster, and all the things people are saying about it.)
Disney’s “Mars Needs Moms” is bombing so hard, it’s on tract to becoming the biggest box office flop of all time. In other words, people thought that this movie was a bigger pile of excrement than The Adventure of Pluto Nash. Think about that for a moment.
The main complaint? If you’re going to do a movie about aliens invading and abducting hot chicks, aiming the show at girls was probably not such a good idea. Girls who actually do like Science Fiction aren’t going to go for something that is girly-girl, and girls who do like girly girl stuff aren’t going to want to watch a science fiction. The boys went out to watch “Battle: Los Angelos” for this one, probably because it reminded them of Rage Against The Machine’s “Battle of Los Angelos”, and that’s some of the finest music made in the past 20 years.
The title “Mars Needs Moms” reminds us guys of those stupid family-comedy estrogen-fests that think riffing science fiction would be cute. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with stuff that has estrogen coming out of its ears (God knows there are enough movies with too much testosterone instead), but the more you push the estrogen (or testosterone) factor, the more that you can expect pretty much half of Americans automatically not wanting to see it.
Here’s something I thought about; what about this example of science fiction?
James Cameron’s Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time, and number 14 of all time when adjusted for inflation. For God’s sake, it’s a Science Fiction my parents have seen.
What was it about Avatar that appealed to us?
Imagine if Avatar was named Pandora Needs Moms and was a feel-good family-comedy about Sigourney Weaver rolling around with the adorable Na’vi while those mean old jerk soldiers try to break their stuff and ruin everything. That’s something people would consider more “girly”, and yet, could we see girls liking this movie more than they liked Avatar? I couldn’t imagine my mother liking that kind of movie.
Now imagine “The Bloody Space Marine” being a movie about Sam Worthington rolling around in a tank blasting those wimpy, sneaky Na’vi (who are trying to take our stuff!) and high fiveing his bros afterwards. That’s something people would consider more “manly”, and yet, could we see men liking this kind of movie more than they liked Avatar? I couldn’t imagine my father liking that kind of movie.
It seems that the movie most successful in captivating the audience was the movie that didn’t explicitly try to be overly girly or manly. It had strong, rich, engaging female and male characters, and all of the characters seemed to have both male and female attributes. Sigourney Weaver’s character was a rational scientist who was stubborn and passionate about her beliefs, while Sam Worthington’s character learned love, and learned to accept and respect the Na’vi. However, they were not one dimensional; Weaver’s character was also nurturing and peaceful, while Worthington’s character was a hard ass marine.
I wonder if it can be said that our concept of complete characters (the ones that makes stories really gripping) is one where the character(s) transcends traditional gender values and incorporates elements of both masculinity and femininity?
I wonder if this unity of male and female values has broader implications?
P.S – I don’t really have anything against family comedies, because there’s another sci fi that comes to mind which also seems to combine male and female values, is true to its genre, and is a movie that people love (at least those who can get over their hang ups about liking a movie that kids like)
Meditations of a Storyteller 
has both male and female value. that’s real smart.
Thank you very much
Funny, that you consider ‘Avatar’ an example of ‘good’ sci-fi (hint: it’s not).
Put it alongside ‘2001’, ‘Alphaville’, ‘Blade Runner’, Stalker’, ‘Solaris’, ‘La Jatee’, ‘Videodrome’, etc. and it gets roundly smoked.
What is “good science fiction”? What is your definition of it? I’m not being confrontational, I am asking with sincerity. I want to know what your definition of good science fiction is, and for three reasons.
One is that I would be cheating myself if I did not consider all possible ways of examining an issue. I freely admit that there’s a chance that a lack of exposure may have led me to an incorrect conclusion, and if you are the person to reveal the truth to me, then it would be moral treason for me to dismiss your opinion.
Second, as science fiction is a genre that has great appeal to me as a professional, I am always interested to find out what draws people of wildly different tastes and expectations to the genre.
Third, is because I’m a man, so chatting endlessly about things like space ships and laser guns is something I like to do.
But for clarification, never once in my post did I claim that Avatar was “good sci fi”. In fact, by standards of the genre, Avatar is actually somewhat dull, especially compared to how vividly imaginative good sci fi actually is. There are great classics like Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, and great contemporaries like Charles Stross’s Accelerando. There’s great Hard sci fi, like as Neil Stephenson’s Diamond Age, and great soft sci fi like Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that Frank Herbert’s Dune series were the finest works of science fiction ever written, for their breadth, scope, consistency, and appeal. The works you mentioned are all great examples of sci fi, especially 2001, which is probably the best sci fi put to cinema.
What I did say, however, was that Avatar was great art. I consider anything that speaks to people and moves their soul as that which constitutes good art. You’d never catch my mother reading Diamond Age, as I’m fairly confident that the only Sci Fi she’s seen and wasn’t bored by was Star Wars and Avatar. Works of art that transcend the specific boundaries of taste and appeal to people of all preferences is what, in my opinion, makes great art. For example, you can probably appreciate the beauty of the Mona Lisa, even though you probably don’t have anything in common with the tastes of 16th century Florentines. For the exact same reasons, Avatar does not need to be good sci fi in order to be a great art, with a great story and great characters.
If my enunciations were not clear or you still think that I am mistaken, I will welcome your feedback.
I prefere to call science fiction… “science fact or, technology” To explain the success of AVATAR i believe its the technology behind the film rather than the film itself that makes it a great film. This was James cameron’s first film since titanic and spending over 3 years producing this film as a critic and collegue or a film fan you can only expect the best. This is one of only two films where i put the strain on me to get a headache and sit through 3 hours whilst wearing plastic glasses, and its trough the 3D, through the technology where AVARTAR is one of the greatest scifi films….. Looking indepth into the scifi film genre the core ideas of the stories are all similar. The scifi genre is meant to wow are minds through the brilliant creativity rather than enjoying two transexuals from the blue man group riding dinosaurs together.
That is why i agree with the above. FAM.1
Doing something good in science fiction is pretty tricky. It has to be well thought-out and well written out too. I know that there was a lot of research going on in making Wall-E. Also I remember George Lucas had to do a lot of thinking ahead as he was working on Star Wars. Often you can tell the stupid one from the real thought out ones. Those that aren’t the best have to have some sort of technological breakthrough in order to work. Like even though many thought Avatar was a lot like pocahontas, it had a lot of excellent visual effects and was able to take the viewer to a place beyond their imaginations.
Enjoyed reading this very much… Indeed, what makes a good movie is probably more about the characters than about the story. Take any classic and turn the characters into shallow, gender-fixed stereotypes and it’s ruined. At least for me!
Hi Alice, thank you very much for your nice comments. Your comment inspired my most recent blogpost regarding characters and plot. I hope you check it out.