A History of Science-Fiction Films (1902-2022)

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  • Christian Sauvé, Congrès Boréal, October 2023

Goal, Warnings, Notes, etc.

  • A history of Science Fiction (SF) movies
    • Also: SF movies in overall film history, as influenced by history
    • Not definitive or exhaustive – just a few essentials
    • “Barroom not Classroom”
  • A focus on Hollywood SF films, with side-glances at sister genres (horror, fantasy) and a few overseas offerings
    • The definition of Science Fiction will be left to the presenter
  • Movie Titles in Bold, except for a corpus of 111 Top SF movies (See Appendix A) in Red Bold Small Caps
  • Companion text (don’t take notes):

Who is Christian Sauvé?

  • Oh no, that guy again
    • Film critic for Solaris and Alibis from 2001-2017
      • Camera Oscura 1-60 and Sci-Néma 153-210
    • 5,200 capsule film reviews at christian-sauve.com, with an enormous 2020-2023 backlog on the way
    • Has moderated SF panels on three continents
    • Has attended every Boréal since 1995; was Boréal’s programming director from 2004-2008; presented lectures in 2004, 2008, 2014, 2015, 2016…
      • Plus, somehow: Discussion par la bande-annonce

120 Years of (SF) Film History: A Map

Let there be Lumières, Méliès and Lang

  • Cinema begins in Paris, on December 28, 1895:
    First commercial film showing by les frères Lumière
  • In the audience: Georges Méliès, stage magician and first movie mogul
  • 1902: Méliès’s Le voyage dans la lune
    • Special effects! Lavish production! Huge budget! Dodgy adaptation!
    • The first narrative movie anyone still cares about!
  • 1910s-1920s: A few adaptations of popular proto-SF books
    • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916), Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920, John Barrymore), The Lost World (1925) and… Nosferatu (1922)
  • 1927: Metropolis
    • by Fritz Lang, husband of proto-SF writer Thea von Harbou
      (Also: Woman in the Moon, 1929)

The 1920s: Silent empire-building

  • Exciting times! Cinema as an emerging art form!
    • Roots in theatre and literature… as well as vaudeville and carnivals
    • Creating the grammar of film, without sound or colour
    • An international effort: United States, France, Germany, Russia…
  • Already in place by 1920: Hollywood studios and the star-system
    • Hollywood’s raison d’être: climate and copyright, away from Fort Lee, NJ
    • The top-to-bottom studio system, controlling production, stars and theaters
    • Celebrities, fans and the gossip press already exist – people sell movies!
    • The movie moguls, often immigrants, build and consolidate their empires
      • Québec-born Mack Sennett presents Chaplin, Keystone Cops, slapstick comedy
    • Movies not considered free speech (1915-1952)
      • Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915) “…the exhibition of moving pictures is a business, pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit…”
      • No septième art in the United States: The commercial imperative was built in the medium’s roots from the beginning and so free speech is not guaranteed

1927: Hollywood’s first pivotal year

  • 1927: First sound films à 1930: Last silent films
    • An artistic revolution changing acting, pacing and storytelling
    • Broadway and radio start to influence film: birth of the musical
    • Some filmmakers criticize sound, but audiences love it
      • It takes three years for sound to dominate (Colour? Three decades)
    • Also 1927: First Academy Awards
      • Showcases what studios want other people to think about (their) movies and Hollywood itself in its projected glamour
    • Also, also 1927: First drafts of the Production Code
      • No “right of free expression” at the movies: it’s the law!
      • The code specifies: No “profanity; nudity; drugs; perversion; white slavery; miscegenation; sex perversion; ridicule of the clergy; willful offense to any nation, race or creed” and more!

The 1930s: Censorship in style

  • Hollywood’s appetite for risqué dialogue and sensational violence is cut back in July 1934 with the enforcement of the Production Code.
    • But before it does, the glory of Pre-Code cinema (1930-1934) remains
    • Hollywood emotionally stunted until the 1960s – Some movies gone for decades
  • Birth of style: If you can’t pass it by the censors, maybe you can suggest it
    • Also: What was the role of the Depression in creating Hollywood Glamour?
    • Who writes the movies? Urbane ex-journalists, smart cynical writers
    • Screwball comedies of the 1930s: Razor-sharp dialogue, fast pacing, escapism
  • The height of the studio system, with exclusive contracts and theaters
  • Late 1930s: Colour! (Snow White, A Star is Born, Robin Hood…)
  • By the end of the decade, all the basic tools are there, and the audiences can finally appreciate film as an entertainment/art form in its own right

SF in the 1930s: Scattered

  • There is no SF genre, but there are works of anticipation
    • Transatlantic Tunnel (1934), Things to Come (1936)
    • First film serials, adapting comics: Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, etc.
  • There is no SF genre, but there is a horror genre
    • The Universal movie monsters, all created within a few years: Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and many sequels.
    • King Kong (1933), Son of Kong (1933)
    • Oddities: Doctor X (1932) in green/red colour, and The Return of Doctor X (1939)… featuring Humphrey Bogart as a mad scientist
  • There is no fantasy genre, but there are literary adaptations…
    • The example of 1920s Germany: Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen (1924), The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
    • 1930s Hollywood: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931, Fredric March), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Lost Horizon (1937), The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The 1940s: War and Noir

  • Wartime propaganda from 1941 to 1945
    • Sub-genres: “Let’s help the United Kingdom” ▪ “Make sacrifices at home so we can win” ▪ “Our troops are awesome and deserve our support” ▪ “Our enemies are terrible and deserve to be killed”
  • The rise of film noir
    • A more cynical look at the world; a haven for strong female characters
    • Anticipates, within the Production Code, later liberalization of cinema
  • Musicals are getting colorful; dramas, not so much
    • “Color is for kids and crowds, black-and-white is for serious drama”
  • Structural changes to integrated studio system, shackled stars
    • De Havilland v. Warner Bros. Pictures (1944) removes many of the restrictions from the Hollywood studios contracts
    • United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948) eventually forces studios to sell their own movie theaters, ending integrated distribution

SF in the 1940s: A lost decade

  • Thin offerings:
    • Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941, Spencer Tracy)
    • The Strange Case of Strange Holiday (1945), which almost combines wartime propaganda with alternate-reality SF.
    • More SF-themed serials (Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, others) to accompany the rise in pulp magazine fiction
    • Quite a few C-grade “reality, with a horror device” monster/horror films that are not pure-SF but anticipate the 1950s

The 1950s: Musical and epic spectacle

  • The gradual end of the studio system
    • Studios sell their theater chains, lose control over their contract stars
    • Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson (1952): movies are finally recognized as free speech!
    • Writers and directors chafing at the restrictions of the Production Code and push back
  • Faced with “Television”, cinema fights back with spectacle
  • Color takes over larger prestige productions – historical epics and musicals
    • Film goes widescreen, with 🎶stereophonic sound🎶
  • 1950s cinema is very critical of the post-war order:
  • Sunset Boulevard (1950), Ace in the Hole (1951), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Silk Stockings (1957), Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), Desk Set (1957), etc.

SF in the 1950s: At last, true SF

  • The beginning of a true Science Fiction genre, thanks to post-war unease and nuclear anxieties barely metaphorized:
    • 1951: The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Thing from Another World
    • George Pal productions: When Worlds Collide (1951), The War of the Worlds (1953)
      • Proto-hard-SF: Destination Moon (1950), Conquest of Space (1955)
    • Paranoid thrills: It Came from Outer Space (1953), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
    • Steampunk before it was cool: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954)
    • A big-budget Science Fiction epic from MGM: Forbidden Planet (1956)
    • Kaiju films begin: Gojira (1954, American re-edit Godzilla in 1956)
    • B-movies: Them! (1954), The Blob (1958), The Fly (1958), Attack of the 50-foot woman (1958), Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

Early 1960s: Doomed Optimism

  • Disintegration of the Studio system, end of the Production Code
    • The original movie moguls have retired, and their heirs are thinking about it
  • Hollywood lost and out of touch: Musicals box-office failures, few new ideas, audiences increasingly made of young baby-boomers
  • Cold War anxieties in the wake of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis: Strangelove (1964), Seven Days in May (1964), Fail-Safe (1964)
  • But also: Fun space-age pop-optimism:
    • Comedies and crowd-pleasers: Charade (1963), The Pink Panther (1963), It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), How to Steal a Million (1966)
    • James Bond and its copies: No (1962), three sequels in three years, and an entire cool-spy sub-genre in imitation
    • Naughty (but tame) sex comedies reflecting looser social conventions: Sex and the Single Girl (1964), Boeing, Boeing (1965), Viva Las Vegas! (1965)
  • European neo-realism to the rescue!
    • Italy starts neo-realism in the 1940s, soon expands to France, UK, Japan, etc.
    • The various New Waves go beyond the stale Classic Hollywood model
    • Who watches those films? Urban cinephiles, trend-setters, filmmakers

SF in the early 1960s: Old Hollywood

  • English-Language SF doesn’t fare any better than the rest of Old Hollywood in the early 1960s – in fact, it’s surprisingly tame and rehashes the 1950s
    • Spectacle: The Time Machine (1960), Fantastic Voyage (1966)
    • Anticipating the apocalypse: Village of the Damned (1960),
      The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), The Day of the Triffids (1963), The Last Man on Earth (1964)
    • Few uneven gems: Seconds (1966), Countdown (1967)
  • French SF does better as part of La Nouvelle Vague.
    • Les yeux sans visage (1960), La Jetée (1962), Alphaville (1965), Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

1967: Hollywood’s second pivotal year

  • The year everything changed… again
    • The movies: The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Producers, Cool Hand Luke, The Dirty Dozen, In Cold Blood, etc.
    • The art form: Vast majority of movies now in colour; black-and-white cinematography category removed from Academy Awards
    • The symbols: Cary Grant retires at 63, Vivien Leigh dies at 53
    • The technology: IMAX prototype exhibited at Expo 67
  • Post-1967: The “New Hollywood” era
    • The writer-director auteurs: Brasher, younger, bearded
    • Baby Boomers come of age: Younger audiences, different subject matter, grimmer tone, more realistic approach
    • MPAA rating system begins in 1968

SF in the late 1960s: New Hollywood

  • Since New Hollywood is more concerned about (finally) portraying the world as it exists, its impact is initially muted on the SF genre.
  • But there are a few landmarks in the late 1960s:
    • The true classic: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
    • The blockbuster: Planet of the Apes (1968)
    • The cult classics: Barbarella (1968), The Green Slime (1968), The Power (1968), Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun (1969)
    • Also, essential TV: Star Trek (1966-1969)

Early 1970s: Despair

  • Things were NOT OK in the United States in the early 1970s
    • Political assassinations, lead-driven urban crime, Watergate, Vietnam, mass protests, crumbling social institutions, “Ford to City: Drop Dead“,
    • Taken over by investors, studios abandon their studios (1970: MGM’s fire sale)
    • Disaster movies! Airport (1970), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974), Earthquake (1974), The Swarm (1978)
  • Early 1970s: New Hollywood
    • Auteur-driven, character-centered, freed from censorship: The Godfather (1972, sequel 1974), Chinatown (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), etc.
    • Obsessed with urban decay… for a good reason: Dirty Harry (1971), Serpico (1973), Mean Streets (1973), Death Wish (1974), Taxi Driver (1976)
    • Often absurdly nihilistic: Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974)
    • Some fun to be found in blaxploitation: Shaft (1971), Cleopatra Jones (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), Three the Hard Way (1974), Friday Foster (1975)…

Early-1970s SF: We’re all going to die

  • Film Science Fiction discovers, enjoys, overdoses on dystopia: No Blade of Grass (1970), THX-1138 (1971), Silent Running (1972), Soylent Green (1973), A Boy and His Dog (1975)
  • Not apocalyptic, but still glum: A Clockwork Orange (1971), Logan’s Run (1976), The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976)
  • Peril, but with some energy: The Andromeda Strain (1971), Westworld (1973, sequel Futureworld in 1976)
  • A few cult classics: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Sleeper (1973), Dark Star (1974)
  • Gems from overseas: World on a Wire (1973), Solaris (1972), La Planète Sauvage (1973)
  • But then… (da-dum)

Late-1970s SF: Entertainment’s back

  • Jaws (1975) sets the stage so that Star Wars (1977) plays
    • Jaws introduces national release dates and marketing
    • Star Wars innovates with special effects, licensing, end credits
    • Studios: “There is $$$ to be made with upbeat genre stories!”
  • The grim 1970s continue…
    • Even in SF: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Capricorn One (1977), Stalker (1979), Meteor (1979),
  • …but the more audience-friendly post-New Hollywood gets going, as 1977 becomes a pivotal year of its own
    • Big-budget thrills: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Battlestar Galactica (1978), Superman (1978), Alien (1979), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Moonraker (1979), The Black Hole (1979) …and cult classic Time After Time (1979)

The 1980s: Hollywood Big Business

  • The studios are back in control, but they answer to others
    • End of New Hollywood, killed by costly excesses and audience apathy
    • Entertainment is the way to profits for conglomerates
    • Studios give up creative development to talent agencies
    • The rise of slick entertainment – the MTV generation
      • Better makeup and special effects in the wake of Star Wars
    • Divergence between box-office and Oscars
  • The Cable TV/VHS revolution
    • Consumer electronics emerge: VHS, PC, hi-fi, arcades…
    • Movies at home, available anytime!
    • Low-budget filmmaking on the rise and bypassing theaters (Horror!)
  • A fundamental shift: From the 1980s on, non-realistic movies now make most of the top-grossing movies of the decade.
    • It’s not even close: From 2, 3 out of ten to 7, 8, 9 or even 10 out of ten

SF in the 1980s: Hybridization

  • Star Wars looms large with sequels: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983)
  • Genre explodes, establishing the modern landscape: In the wake of Star Wars’ popularity, now-familiar SF elements are fused to other genres as filmmakers and audiences become fluent with them:
    • Action: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), Aliens (1986), Escape from New York (1981)
    • Satire: Brazil (1985), They Live (1988), RoboCop (1987)
    • Thrillers: Predator (1987), The Abyss (1989)
    • Horror: The Fly (1986), Altered States (1980)
    • Comedy: Back To The Future (1985), Repo Men (1984), Ghostbusters (1984)
    • Animation: Akira (1988)
    • Social Commentary: The Brother from Another Planet (1984)
    • SF novel adaptations: Dune (1984), 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

More SF in the 1980s: Trends & Fads

  • 1982: Perhaps the single best five weeks in SF movie history
    • Released in theaters between June 4 and July 9, 1982: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Thing, Blade Runner, Tron
      (Oh, and Poltergeist)
  • Techno-anxieties of 1982-4, taking cues from consumer electronics
    • Tron (1982), Wargames (1983), Superman 3 (1983), Brainstorm (1983), Blue Thunder (1983), Videodrome (1983), The Terminator (1984)
  • The Fantasy boom of the early 1980s, fueled by Star Wars’ success
    • Dragonslayer (1981), Clash of the Titans (1981), Conan the Barbarian (1982), The Dark Crystal (1982), The Last Unicorn (1982), The Secret of NIMH (1982), The NeverEnding Story (1984), more!
  • Horror in the 1980s would be worth a hour-long lecture by itself…

The 1990s: Indies and megaprofits

  • Building on the audience-friendly foundation of the 1980s, the VHS revolution births a new generation of filmmakers
    • Neo-noir debuts: Boyle, Tarantino, Nolan, Ritchie, Anderson, the Wachowskis…
    • Genre is fine; everyone grew up with it
    • The impact of Miramax in the independent film explosion
    • The Oscars once again align with box-office success
  • Special effects reach a new level
    • Compare/contrast special effects of the early decade (analog) vs late-decade (digital); also computer-animated movies in the wake of Toy Story (1995).
  • The Internet arrives – and eventually online film discussions
  • The multiplexation of movie theaters as a mega-business
    • Why have one screen when you can have 2, 5, 8, 10, 12, !!16!!

SF in the 1990s: More and Better

  • Building on increasing genre fluency, SF grows more sophisticated, and uses (introduces!) much better special effects to deliver movies in a variety of sub-genres:
    • The present threatened by SF devices: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), Independence Day (1996), Men In Black (1997)
    • Wide-screen futures: Total Recall (1990), The Fifth Element (1997)
    • Thrillers: 12 Monkeys (1995), Strange Days (1995), Gattaca (1997)
    • Satire: Starship Troopers (1997), Galaxy Quest (1999)
    • Animation: Ghost in the Shell (1995), The Iron Giant (1999)
    • Horror: Tremors (1990), Cube (1997), Event Horizon (1997)
    • One rare hard-SF movie: Contact (1997)
  • Pre-Y2K virtual anxiety: Dark City (1998), The Matrix (1999), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), Existenz (1999)
  • TV makes a mark: Star Trek: The Next Generation, X-Files, Babylon 5

The 2000s: Frightened Escapism

  • 2001: 9/11 rather than A Space Odyssey
    • America is afraid of others; others are afraid of America
    • Wars, 2008 recession, environmental concerns – not a good decade
    • At the movies, the impact feels a lot like the 1970s: no fun allowed
      • A boom in escapist fantasy, led by the Lord of the Rings trilogy
    • Not an overly exciting decade in cinematic innovations, but signs of evolution were clear if you knew where to look
      • Ever-slicker CGI, increasingly undistinguishable from the real thing
      • Computer-animation replaces traditional animation
      • Increased corporatization of movie studios as part of broader media portfolios, often reflected in attempts to create multi-media universes
      • All-digital production workflow, from shooting to showing
      • 2007: Netflix’s crazy new streaming idea…
      • …and an ambitious plan to adapt Marvel’s comic book universe

SF in the 2000s: Overshadowed but unbowed

  • The decade starts well with I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Donnie Darko (2001), Equilibrium (2002) and Minority Report (2002)
  • But then Fantasy triumphs commercially and critically with The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) then Pirates of the Caribbean (2003-2007) and Harry Potter (2003-2009), spawning many imitators.
    • SF goes quieter between 2003-2009.
    • The day the nerds won Hollywood: February 29, 2004
    • Still, many interesting SF tiles – many dour: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Primer (2004), I, Robot (2004), Serenity (2005), Children of Men (2006), A Scanner Darkly (2006), Paprika (2006, JP), The Host (2006, SK), The Prestige (2006), Sunshine (2007), Wall-E (2008), Cloverfield (2008)
  • Iron Man (2008) launches an insane project called the MCU
  • 2009: Science Fiction is BACK
    • Avatar as the harbinger of the 2010s
    • But also: District 9, Moon, Star Trek, Nobody, Push, Splice, etc.
  • Videogames as real SF: Mass Effect (2008), Fallout 3 (2009), etc.

The 2010s: Malleable Reality

  • Digital filmmaking becomes the norm
    • At the high end: All-digitally created “live-action” movies
      • Gravity (2013), The Jungle Book (2016), Life of Pi (2012)
      • If you can picture it, you can make it… if you have the budget
    • At the low end: digital production becomes commonplace
      • Much lower barrier to entry – far many more movies
      • Wall-to-wall special effects and invisible digital touch-ups
      • The visual quality of films sharply increases: commodification of wonder
    • Digital distribution takes off
      • Home streaming becomes dominant model
      • More than ever, theaters are now optional to a film’s success
      • Being a cinephile has never been easier… or better

SF in the 2010s: Franchises and Themes

  • Serial storytelling writ large: Sequels, series, universes – Are franchise films replacing pure SF movies?
    • MCU culminates in Avengers: Infinity War / Endgame (2018-2019), other cinematic universes are weaker
      • Some SF in the MCU: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
    • Inevitably: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Blade Runner 2049 (2017) , Star Wars IX: The Last Jedi (2017), Logan (2017), etc.
  • Themes:
    • Alien invasions: Monsters (2010), Battle: Los Angeles (2011), The World’s End (2013), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), etc.
    • Young Adult dystopia: Hunger Games (2012-15), Maze Runner (2014-2018), unfinished Divergent series (2014-16), etc.
    • A streak of hard-ish space science fiction:
      Gravity (2013), Interstellar (2014), The Martian (2015)
    • Artificial Intelligence: Her (2013), Ex Machina (2014), Transcendance (2014), Automata (2014), Chappie (2015), etc.

SF in the 2010s: Auteurs and tangents

  • In-between franchises, there are auteur-driven films
    • Inception (2010, Nolan), Her (2013, Jonze), Gravity (2013, Cuarón), Snowpiercer (2013, Joon-ho), Arrival (2016, Villeneuve), etc.
  • A boom in clever pure-SF movies
    • Attack the Block (2011), Source Code (2011), Looper (2012), Europa Report (2013), Predestination (2014), Annihilation (2018), Ready Player One (2018), Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
    • Also a boom in pretentious pseudo-SF half-successes as well: Cloud Atlas (2012), Under the Skin (2013), High Life (2018), Ad Astra (2019)
  • Hollywood-style blockbusters outside Hollywood
    • China: Shanghai Fortress & The Wandering Earth (2019, sequel 2023)
    • India: PK (2014), Enthiran (2010, sequel 0 in 2018 )
  • SF multimedia: Videogames and television level up
    • Prey, Soma, Outer Wilds, No Man’s Sky ▪ Black Mirror, Westworld ▪

The 2020s – What to Expect?

  • Are movies still as important as a storytelling medium?
    • Mounting losses: A pandemic, followed by bad summers and two major strikes
    • Fear of Artificial Intelligence escapes film, reaches Hollywood filmmakers
    • Wither theaters – a permanent shift in distribution?
    • But also, a fragmentation in streaming – consolidation to follow?
    • Shared Universes, Sequels and Serial storytelling: on the decline?
  • More ambitious international titles:
    • South Korea: Space Sweepers (2021), Jung_E (2023)
    • India does cinematic universe: Brahmastra: Part One – Shiva (2022)
    • China: Warrior of Future (2022)
  • More diverse storytelling; no genre barrier; wilder style
    • An instant classic: Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
  • And yet Hollywood still delivers solid titles:
    • Tenet (2020), Dune: Part One (2021), The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021), Prey (2022), Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), M3gan (2022)

Bonus: Top 111 SF films

  • A compilation of fifteen Top-100 lists, plus one mandatory addition

Another Bonus: AI Bloopers

  • All images in this presentation were generated by AI (Stable Diffusion SDXL).
    Here are some of the funniest images not selected to illustrate the presentation:

Final Bonus: Impossible movies

  • All images in this presentation were generated by AI (Stable Diffusion SDXL).
    Here are visions of great SF films never made

A few key pieces of SF criticism jargon

  • SF = Science Fiction, sometimes Speculative Fiction, never Sci-Fi for specialists
    • One Definition of SF: Exploring a rational departure from reality
    • Pure SF = Science Fiction that is focused on the strengths of SF rather than being an excuse for something else (horror, comedy, romance, etc.)
    • Hard SF = Science Fiction focused on being as scientifically accurate as possible (at one or two very specific and deliberate exceptions per story)
  • Genre = An ongoing conversation between creators and audience
    • The difference between disconnected films, and films that are made by the same people, aim for the same audience, and build on previous successes (or failures)
    • Genre stories can be more specialized, interesting, specific because they build on a shared understanding of storytelling devices, past stories and audience expectations
    • (Hence) Proto-SF = Science Fiction that existed before the Science Fiction genre