Genre Analysis of Science-Fiction

 

Audiences use genre to determine whether or not to go watch a film. Genre is determined on iconography (things you see – props, locations, blood, weapons etc.) and the narrative. All genres have common conventions that people do or do not want to see, for example common conventions of horrors are blood, gore and suspense. The majority of people will decide whether or not they want to watch something depending on if it is Sci-fi, RomCom, Drama or Horror. Not all people will only watch one type of film but most people have their preferences and equally, genres they aren’t interested in at all. Producers also use genre to market their films, knowing they have a niche target audience depending on the genre. Screenwriters will use genre to structure their screenplay whether it be genre specific of a ‘hybrid’ of genres. More and more we are seeing films with a hybrid of genres. This meaning that it is many genres rolled into one. An example of this is the film ‘The Terminator’. As a sci-fi alone it may not have done so well however with action scenes and also quite a horror feel about it at times this led to quite large success.

Science-fiction has a lot of common conventions. It is a genre that not everyone enjoys but is still hugely popular. Some of the common conventions are things like space, aliens/robots/monsters and time travel. A few of these are used in ‘The Terminator’. The Terminator (James Cameron 1984) is set in then modern day Los Angeles. A cyborg that looks like a human is sent back in time from 2029 to kill a woman called Sarah Connor, along with a human from the same time who has come to stop him. The cyborg has human skin and hair which gives the impression that he is futuristic as nothing like that has been invented in our time. Although he has human skin he has a metallic skeleton which symbolises strength as well as death and danger. In the film the human that has come back in time says that it is him against the cyborg. This symbolises that it will come down to man against machine. This is significant as at the time people thought that technology was advancing too quickly and some may have even feared that the computers may outsmart and overtake humans. It’s this fear that allowed James Cameron to make such a successful film with a hybrid of genres.

 

When going to see a sci-fi audiences expect a number of conventions like time travel and robots, however The Terminator is a hybrid of genres and can be labelled a horror and an action movie as well as a sci-fi. There are scenes of gore and quite a bit of blood at times which are conventions you come to expect in a horror movie. The music, at parts of the film for example when the cyborg is walking around the police station looking for Sarah Connor the music sets the mood of being very tense. Also the lighting is generally very dark and the majority of the film is set at night. This is to set the mood of it being a dark time for the characters and the world in general but I also think this is to link the present, cyborg trying to eliminate hope for humans to survive and the future (what we see of the future it is very dark all the time) which seems very bleak. The Terminator also has some action conventions. For example there are a couple of car chases that involve a lot of crashing. There is also a lot of explosions and gun fire throughout the film. These are conventions commonly seen in action movies. This hybrid of genres makes for good viewing as there is something for a lot of movie fanatics.

 

Sci-fi is often used to make a point about the present even when it is set years and years in the future or past. An example of this could perhaps be ‘Children of Men’ directed by Alfonso Cuaron in 2007. In the opening five minutes you are given quite a sense on what things are like around the world in the year 2027. Set in London you see that physically not all that much has changed but everywhere seems rundown and dirty and polluted. This may be a message that we don’t take care of our environment perhaps as much as we should and that in less than 20 years maybe our world will be as polluted as this one. This backed up by how realistic the world it is set in is made to seem. For example cars are much the same albeit very dirty. Humanity is also put into question. People have lost the ability to procreate and this is slowly killing the human race. This and the dyer state of living around the world suggests that humans are hopeless and also that they are not united, maybe suggesting how they got into that situation in the first place, making audiences think that the same could happen. This and The Terminator both set out very early on in the films to make the future seem like a very dark place to live, perhaps telling audiences we need to make a change to create a better future.

 

This is a total opposite to what the future is shown to be in ‘Back to the Future Part 2’ directed by Robert Zemeckis in 1989. In the opening 20 minutes or so to this film, we see that the future (2015-almost 30 years from when the film was made) was a wonderful looking place with vast colours and a number of technological advancements. There were flying cars and hover boards which both indicate huge technological advancements and bright, positive futures. There were also hologram advertisements for ‘Jaws 19’ which in a way suggested where the movie industry could be going, endless sequels, which wasn’t all wrong. Despite being made to seem a very futuristic place, there were still links to the then present. Big important buildings like the courthouse were very similar to what they would have been back then. This gives the audience that bit of familiarity that helps them believe this futuristic world may be possible. A Thematic Convention of Sci-fi is that time travel can be used to make the future a better place, whether it be going back in time The Terminator or going into the Future like Back to the Future part 2, to make the future a better place.

 

Films where the genres conventions have been subverted are a common thing nowadays. Subverted conventions are when the common conventions of a genre are twisted or undermined. An example of a film with subverted conventions is ‘Avatar’ by James Cameron 2009. Avatar was hugely a hugely successful Sci-fi/Adventure movie which took years to make. In sci-fi films that involve aliens we have come to expect they invade earth or the human population at least. However in Avatar it is the humans that invade the aliens so we can get to certain resources. This totally overthrows the common conventions of sci-fi where the aliens would invade humans. The humans led by proud American Army General, invading ‘aliens’ could symbolise modern day ‘invasions’. The resource the Americans are trying to get to is a highly valuable rock that could be used for power. This could symbolise oil and other fossil fuels and the importance of them as they are getting scarcer and scarcer, and to get these fossil fuels Americans invade countries and take their oil without much regard of the damage they cause, like the Americans in Avatar. If this is the message behind this film, audiences get a much needed perspective from the other side of the invasion and get to see the people going into a different land and taking what perhaps they are not entitled to, in a new light.