{"id":961,"date":"2007-09-03T23:26:19","date_gmt":"2007-09-03T22:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/archives\/2007\/09\/03\/is-sci-fi-really-dead\/"},"modified":"2007-09-04T00:17:42","modified_gmt":"2007-09-03T23:17:42","slug":"is-sci-fi-really-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2007\/09\/03\/is-sci-fi-really-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Is sci-fi really dead?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ridley<\/a>The Guardian<\/a> was one of many outlets<\/a> over the weekend reporting Ridley Scott’s recent assertion that sci-fi was “dead”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They report:<\/p>\n

Sir Ridley Scott believes<\/a> that the science fiction movie is a spent force; an extinct race; a decommissioned battlestar. Talking in Venice<\/a>, where he was presenting another<\/em> new cut of Blade Runner<\/a>, the director declared the genre as dead as the western.<\/p>\n

“There’s nothing original,” says Scott. “We’ve seen it all before. Been there. Done it.” Asked to pick out examples, he said: “All of them. Yes, all of them.”<\/p>\n

Scott – who has been responsible for two sci-fi classics (he also directed Alien<\/a>) – went on to add that no film in the genre could ever beat Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/a>, “the best of the best”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Remembering that he has given the genre two bona fide classics in Alien<\/strong><\/a> and Blade Runner<\/strong><\/a>, perhaps his comments should give us pause for thought.<\/p>\n

Even quality sci-fi films in recent years seem to owe a great deal to Scott’s films and Kubrick’s classic 1968 film<\/a>. Motifs such as the monolith<\/a> in 2001 and even the device of having a band of contrasting characters aboard a spaceship have been used so often that maybe Ridley has a point. But to say that there isn’t anything <\/em>original does sound a little too grumpy and shortsighted to me.<\/p>\n

If you want to check out quality sci-fi made in recent years then I would suggest watching Children of Men<\/strong><\/a>, Sunshine<\/a><\/strong>, Serenity<\/a><\/strong>, Gattaca<\/a><\/strong>, Twelve Monkeys<\/a><\/strong>, The Matrix<\/strong><\/a>, Solaris<\/strong><\/a>, Minority Report<\/strong><\/a> and A Scanner Darkly<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Feel free to post your thoughts below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Guardian was one of many outlets over the weekend reporting Ridley Scott’s recent assertion that sci-fi was “dead”. They report: Sir Ridley Scott believes that the science fiction movie is a spent force; an extinct race; a decommissioned battlestar. Talking in Venice, where he was presenting another new cut of Blade Runner, the director […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}