Looking Forward In Reverse

 

Last Sunday's Los Angeles Times featured this great article on the front page of the Calendar section about how modern science fiction seems to keep looking to the past in order to tell stories about the future.

 

The future looks very familiar. Science fiction, by its nature, is a celebration of the new, but you wouldn't know that by watching Hollywood's space operas. "Star Trek," for instance, is on the way back to theaters next summer in hopes that moviegoers will still want to boldly go where millions and millions have gone before. And it's been more than 30 years since "Star Wars" made film history, but the Force is still very much with us -- whether we like it or not -- with a seventh film in theaters this past summer, one of the year's bestselling video games and a new weekly animated television show (there's also talk of a live-action series in the next year or two).

 

And that's just the tip of the meteorite.

 

The "Terminator" and "Robocop" franchises are being revved up now for more mechanical-man mayhem, and classic films such as "Forbidden Planet" and "When Worlds Collide" are in the remake pipeline, while the new take on " The Day the Earth Stood Still," starring Keanu Reeves, opens Dec. 12. Even " Battlestar Galactica," which began as a small-screen "Star Wars" knockoff in the 1970s, has been revived with spectacular results and will break new ground in 2009 with the TV movie "Caprica" on Sci Fi, with a series to follow.

 

The article continues on by looking at why Hollywood seems to have this continuing tendency to perpetually look backwards when imagining futuristic science fiction properties to make instead of making up new ideas and new franchises.  I've heard these sorts of complaints before.  Hell, I've even made these complaints myself from time to time that I'm getting fed up with Hollywood continually going back to the well of old sci-fi films of the 50's and 60's and even occasionally 70's when they're looking to fund science fiction projects.  Why do they keep doing this?  Is it because Hollywood is out of ideas?

 

That seems to be the standard argument I hear from most sci-fi fans, but the more I think about it, I'm not sure that's an entirely fair argument to make.  Do I feel that there is a lack of creativity in Hollywood for new sci-fi properties?  Not really.  I think the faults lie elsewhere.  And at the risk of going against you, my faithful readers (yes, all three of you) I think we're mainly the ones to blame.  I'll get to that in a second though, for now let's look at Hollywood.

 

Hollywood's portion of the blame, as I see it, comes from the film companies acting like what they really are at heart.  A business.  They're concerned with their bottom lines.  Their worry is whether "Film X" will make a decent enough profit for them to warrant it's vast production costs?  Sci-fi films by their nature tend to be costly endeavors.  They're special effect heavy and the sets and costumes needed to make them are extremely detailed.  A sci-fi film on the average is going to cost a lot more to make than, oh say, a romantic comedy or a drama.  I can't really blame hollywood here.  If you're going to be investing anywhere from $40 to $80 to make even a smaller budget sci-fi film, you are going to want to choose something that has as good a chance as possible of making money, and the safest bets out there are pre-established franchises or remakes of films that have name recognition amongst fans.  So of course you're going to see things like Robocop or The Day The Earth Stood Still getting remakes more often than you are going to see new properties come out.  Those remakes have a built-in fanbase or at least enough name recognition to draw the average movie-goer out of their home to see how the newly updated version of a film compares to the original.

 

But why is there always that inherent fear from Hollywood of the potential failure of new sci-fi properties?  Why are they always seen as a risky investment?  This is where we the fans are at fault.  First off, sci-fi fans are a niche market.  Let's be honest, there aren't that many of us to begin with.  Secondly, we're very picky on the average and we tend not to like new things.  More often than not, if given a choice, most sci-fi fans would vote to see a new Star Wars or Star Trek movie over going to see a new property they've never heard of.  It's the strange dichotomy of the sci-fi fans that we will perpetuate that which we despise while at the same time decrying how things are going.  We'll lament the lack of good sci-fi out there to see while at the same time skipping on going to see some small budget sci-fi films, yet all the while we're counting down the days until the new Star Trek movie comes out.  It doesn't make any sense, but that's how we are.

 

So can you blame hollywood then for continually going back to the same tried and true properties of sci-fi gold when that is really all the fans want to see deep down?

 

Make no mistake, there is some amazing sci-fi out there to be found.  The problem is though that most fans don't want to take the time to find these films.  They're not always common, and they don't always have people in space ships fighting intergalactic wars, but true gems of science fiction glory can be found if you look hard enough.  Films like Children of Men or A Scanner Darkly are good examples of this.  They're great pieces of science fiction that almost no one saw in theaters.  Children of Men cost $76 million to make and only brought in $35.5 million in the US ($69 million worldwide).  A Scanner Darkly is even sadder.  It only cost $8.7 million to make, but it was still a box office failure and only brought in $5.5 million. This is even worse when you consider the high quality cast the film had including Robert Downey Jr., Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson.

 

One last example.  Director Danny Boyle is currently getting huge amounts of press and raving critic reviews for his new film Slumdog Millionaire.  However, back in 2007 Mr. Boyle released a science fiction film called Sunshine that got almost no press whatsoever and almost didn't even get a theatrical release.  About a crew of scientists that were sent to re-ignite the Sun in a desperate attempt to save the Human race, the film is beautifully shot.  It's slow pacing and long camera shots are reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris and the original Alien film.  Critical reception of the film was great, with most reviewers giveing the film very positive reviews.  However, the film cost $40 million to make and only made $3.6 million in the US ($32 million worldwide).

 

So where are the fans?  I've only provided these three examples, but there are many more out there.  If you have good movies being made by talented directors, with amazing casts in them, why are they failing?  I honestly think it boils down to people not wanting to step out of their comfort zones.  They like to return again and again to the characters they know and love and don't want to risk the $10 price of a movie ticket on something that they may or may not like.

 

It's no wonder then that the three biggest science fiction franchises out there right now are all over 30 years old.  Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica are both from the 70's.  Star Trek is from the 60's.  I honestly can't think of any new, successful sci-fi franchises that have come out since the year 2000.  The closest thing I can think of would be the Matrix movies.  The Matrix is the one exception that proves the rule really.  Somehow, that film became popular enough to warrant two fairly successful sequels, but besides that trilogy (and maybe even the Riddick trilogy which I just don't understand at all how they all got made) I can't think of a single sci-fi franchise that has come out since 1990 that has been anywhere near as successful as the older ones I've already mentioned.

 

So what do we do then?  How do we change this trend?  I guess the question really is, "Do people even want it to change?"  Most fans seem content to go see remake after remake, even if they're going to complain about the number of remakes being made while doing so.  Unless we, as science fiction fans, go out there and support new properties and new ideas when they come out, then Hollywood will continue to do what it has always done, give us what we're asking for.  And right now, what we're asking for is the same old stuff over and over.