Gokmen 1
Cem Gokmen
Prof. Joshua Hussey
English 1102
20 July 2017
Archival Narratives: A Science Fiction Movie Poster Archive
The purpose of this Science Fiction Movie Poster Archive is to highlight the evolving characteristic features of the science fiction movie genre throughout the past century, by analyzing posters of science fiction movies for their common features as well as their differences, with regard to their chronologicalorder. The archive contains posters of some of the most popular science fiction movies of all time – from early examples likeMetropolisandFrankensteinto all-time classics likeStar Warsand2001: A Space Odyssey, and finally modern science fiction films likeInterstellarandThe Martian. The posters of these movies are regarded as reflections of their contents and as a result, are used as a way of discussing movie contents and themes without having to discuss movies directly, which are much harder to close-read. The posters’ content and design are used as a means of identifying characteristics of the movie in order to be able to discuss the movies’ evolution.
The research for the artifacts in this archive was done in four phases: first, the science fiction movie genre was researched in terms of its history to find out about notable titles. This first phase produced important titles like Metropolis and The War of The Worlds that this author was otherwise unfamiliar with. Then, a reliable source of posters for these movies was located: a poster archive under the name of Internet Movie Poster Awards was found to be the most suitable, since it included citations to the designers of most of the posters selected. Then, all found titles were arranged in chronological order with their posters and were reviewed in order to make sure the entire archive together produced a single narrative. Some titles, like Back to the Future, were included in the drafts because of their historical and artistic significance but later removed because they did not contribute to the emergent narrative. Finally, the linking narrative was discussed in writing, together with support from secondary sources on the evolution of the genre.
Close Readings of the Included Posters
Metropolis (1927). The poster of Metropolis features a man carrying a large city on his back. The pioneering film of the science fiction genre, Metropolis came multiple decades before the advent of spaceflight and as a result, did not feature any alien elements. Instead, it was about a dystopia where the working class supported the upper class city at a great cost, similar to slavery. The fantasy element came from the metropolis – a city beautiful utopia above ground and a horrifying dystopia underground. The poster does not contain references to too many storyline elements and is focused on the single message of the workers’ struggle – a theme central to the interwar period and not directly related to science.
Frankenstein (1931). The poster of Frankenstein features Frankenstein’s Monster, together with Dr. Frankenstein working on creating him, and his wife Elizabeth lying unconscious on her bed, a spoiler to the storyline. The science fiction here comes from how Dr. Frankenstein is able to return a dead man into life, and how his assistant’s choosing of the wrong brain turns the reborn man into a monster. The poster contributes to this pseudoscientific explanation – the movie talks about chemistry and some special “rays” that allow Dr. Frankenstein to reincarnate the man, relating to some of the major science fields of the era. This movie is evidently meant as a horror film without too much of a central theme, and the science depicted is some of the very early content of the genre.
Destination Moon (1950). The poster of Destination Moon features a rocket taking off, highlighting the defining feature of this movie as the first ever movie to realistically represent spaceflight (previous movies had used Jules Verne’s cannon approach instead of a rocket propulsion approach). This movie signaled the advent of the space age both theme and realism-wise, focusing on the dangers and wonders of spaceflight and entirely excluding future classical themes like romance. The poster makes it evident that this movie is a harbinger of a new period in science fiction, with less about pseudoscience and more about science and adventure.
The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951). The poster of The Day The Earth Stood Still features a humanoid robot (Gort), a woman he appears to be kidnapping (while this is not true in the storyline) and a military force appearing to fire at him. This movie was important for its central theme: the aliens wanted the humans to live peacefully, alarmed by the advent of nuclear power and spaceflight. Although the poster appears to depict the aliens under a negative light, this movie is historically significant both an early alien visitation films, and as one of the first movies to depict aliens positively. As the poster depicts, this movie features aliens visiting Earth, and as a result, precedes the popularization of spaceflight in fiction.
The War of the Worlds (1953). The poster of The War of the Worlds features a claw reaching down at a scared couple holding onto each other. As the poster implies, the movie featured aliens attacking Earth and humans’ struggle to stop them. Once again this film did not feature any human technological advancements that they used to fight against the aliens – instead, the film was more about how any attempt to fight the aliens were futile since they were so overwhelmingly powerful, as the poster suggests from the claw’s size. The film was a commentary on the atomic age in terms of how nuclear war could compare to an alien attack, and also made the humans’ survival to depend on fate and divine intervention rather than any scientific achievement.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The poster of 2001: A Space Odyssey is drastically different from the previous examples. While still an illustration, it is in the form of an advertisement of the space station depicted (as understood from the subtitle). The tagline sets the movie as a drama of adventure and exploration: two of the central themes of spaceflight and the era of science fiction that it introduced. Indeed, this movie takes itself very seriously – Kubrick and Clarke intended for it to be a realistic depiction of what they thought spaceflight would look like in the 2000s. The style of this movie is so different from other examples of the genre especially due to its calm, classical music-adorned scenes. This movie is a drastic change from the previous examples – even though it still involves “aliens” they are by no means the central theme of the movie, as it can be understood from its poster, which features the fancy space station as a symbol of scientific advancement.
Star Wars (1977). The poster of Star Wars is also very different from the previous movies. It features numerous different storylines at once: Darth Vader and the Death Star as a symbol of the struggle of good versus evil, the flying X-Wings as a symbol of the film’s combat scenes, R2-D2 and C3PO to symbolize the involvement of robots, and Han Solo and Princess Leia, the characters of the romance storyline. All of these elements, mostly new to the genre at this point, would later become classic, clichéd elements of many science fiction movies. It is also easy to realize from the poster that this movie has no claims about realism – it’s an epic story of love and heroism set in a very different universe, using spaceflight as a means of introducing these concepts outside the usual setting. As a result, while not straying from the humans versus other planets storyline of the period, Star Wars was revolutionary for including classic movie elements like romance or the struggle between good and evil in a space-themed movie, and thanks to the perfect implementation of this novelty, become one of the best-selling movies of all time.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). The poster of E.T. features a shot that is perhaps the most recognizable, most famous of the science fiction genre, depicting the friendship of Elliott, a lonely boy, and E.T., an alien who Elliott befriends and helps return to his home planet. This movie is included in this archive for the reason of showing how the discussed periods of science fiction are not as concrete as it may seem to be. Indeed, E.T. was released in an era dominated by the likes of Star Wars and Star Trek and despite not being similar to those movies theme-wise, became the highest-grossing movie in history, surpassing Star Wars. This achievement symbolizes the emerging popularity of the genre as a whole and that even though certain themes, like alien visitations, may start to appear less in certain periods, movies that involve these less-worked themes do not necessarily end up being unsuccessful or outdated.
Wall-E (2008). The poster of Wall-E features two robots, Wall-E and Eve, sitting on a bench on a desolate, abandoned Earth. It is understood that this is the future from the rocket flying on the background. While resembling a children’s movie, Wall-E is an important critical work for people of all ages, investigating a number of important questions from humanity’s connection with Earth to the purpose of life without work. Unlike any of the previous posters, this poster features the film’s main characters at its center and very few other elements other than that – a clear indication of the new era of science-fiction movies that focuses more on characters, experiences, and most importantly, key philosophical questions.
Interstellar (2014). The poster of Interstellar features pilot Joseph Cooper, the storyline’s center character, walking in a snowstorm. The setting looks foreign, and the tagline – “The end of Earth will not be the end of us” – supports this observation. Indeed, the poster depicts the struggles of finding a place to live after Earth’s demise, but more importantly once again centralizes on the character and the philosophical questions about the relationship of humans and Earth – marking Interstellar as yet another movie of this new period of science fiction films.
The Martian (2015). The poster of The Martian features a close-up of astronaut Mark Watney’s face as its central element, above a photo of him walking all alone on the Martian terrain. The poster’s main focus is depicting Watney’s loneliness on the planet, and the image displayed as well as the Martian dust color scheme is very effective in achieving this and marking The Martian as yet another character-focused movie. Indeed, for most of The Martian, Watney is the only character seen on screen, and the movie is an epic of how he survives alone on a foreign planet, both physically and psychologically.
The Emergent Narrative: The Historical Periods of Science Fiction
The emergentnarrative of this archive is how the science fiction movie genre evolved throughout its existence: how it started off with more fantastic elements and this characteristic started to fade as the genre matured, leaving its place to more realism and depth. This characteristic, together with the introduction of the major storyline theme of space exploration, allows for the loose categorization of all sci-fi movies into four historical periods.The first period featured more fantasy than science, and was not at all concerned with space. WhenMetropolis, one of the pioneering works of the genre, orFrankenstein, one of the world’s best-known science fiction movies, were released; both of their plots were based more on fantasy than science.Metropolis’ poster features a man carrying the city to depict mistreated workers in a dystopia, while that ofFrankensteinfeatures Dr. Frankenstein as well as the monster he creates – something certainly based on pseudoscience at best. But as the genre progressed, and the Space Age began with the superpowers achieving scientific victories previously thought impossible, the genre changed themes, suddenly the movies started becoming more about space. However, while they did start thinking more about spaceflight, like the first realistic spaceflight movieDestination Moonwhich, for the first time, featured a rocket-based moon transport instead of a cannon-based like in the stories of Jules Verne; this second historical period remained about fantastical creatures from space visiting Earth – as depicted byThe Day The Earth Stood Still‘s aliens and robots visiting Earth, or byWar of the Worlds‘ Martian claw threatening a scared couple. However, the important achievements of real-life spaceflight brought the advent of the third historical period of science fiction films where humans went into space, usually to fight off a variety of antagonists. Some of these stories focused on the technological aspects, like2001: The Space Odyssey, which depicted Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick’s vision for spaceflight in the new millennium more than it focused on a certain storyline; and some depicted interplanetary conflicts, likeStar Wars– featuring spaceflight, war, romance, attractive women, robots and fantastic animals all at once, not only on the film but on its poster, too. But as the romantic glory of spaceflight faded, and unrealistic expectations from it were failed, space films started to focus more on the scientific, realistic aspects of spaceflight, on the personality and thoughts of individual characters, and most importantly, on philosophical questions about the existence of the human race as well as those of its relationship with the nature. These films, which we will consider part of the fourth and final historical period, are mostly devoid of fantastical elements and intend to make the viewer think about important questions – like what will happen after the Earth becomes uninhabitable like inWall-EorInterstellar, or what would happen if an astronaut were to be stranded on another planet, likeThe Martian. The focus of these movies on the characters is very clearly highlighted by their posters: all three aforementioned movies’ posters are centered on their heroes, and very few other theme or storyline elements are introduced on the poster.
Indeed, existing literature on the history of science fiction movies appears to agree with the narrative that emerges from this archive. In her book Science Fiction Cinema: Between Fantasy and Reality, author Christine Cornea discusses a number of periods in science fiction. Three of these eras appear to coincide with those this report discusses. The first period, which she calls the formation of the genre, starts much earlier than the posters mentioned here but covers a period spanning those of Metropolis and Frankenstein (Cornea 16). According to Cornea, this period featured some early experiments with the genre on camera like in Frankenstein, as well as philosophical texts on the ongoing wars like Metropolis. Then came the period of the 1950s where a number of successful films likeDestination Moon,The Day The Earth Stood Still and The War of the Worlds were shot (Cornea 30). This era represented a period of increased interest in science fiction before the full advent of spaceflight, coincidentally and reaffirmingly giving the exact same examples as this dataset. And the final period mentioned both by this report and Cornea is the period “between the Golden Years” – the period driven by the Space Race that led to the production of movies like 2001: A Space Oddity. Cornea agrees that this period was characterized by a change in themes from the earlier period into content more scientific and impersonal than before (Cornea 76).
Overall, the overarching narrativeof this archive is an important trend – in time, science fiction has started to become less about fiction, and more about science. This evolution has taken place loosely in periods that correlate with the advent of the Space Age – the fantasy period, when spaceflight was not an everyday theme, the alien visit period, when space had become relevant and SETI programs to contact aliens had begun, the visit-to-aliens period, when spaceflight had advanced and promised great future advancements, and the no-aliens period, where the existence of aliens near us became unlikely and the human aspect of spaceflight became more interesting as more and more astronauts flew to space. While this evolution might be to the delight of many fans who appreciate the scientific value of sci-fi films, it is certainly impossible to question the artistic value of early sci-fi films as well as all-time classics – it is up to the viewer of the archive to decide which era of science fiction movies was the most influential.
Appendix: Archive Posters
Figure 1: Metropolis (1927)