Stu Presents, Genre Deconstruction In Film: A Crash Course!

[Irish]

Hoo boy. I don't wanna shit on your thread as you're just getting started (and I'm curious what else made your list), but it's odd to me that you're taking a sorta ahistorical view of both sci-fi as a genre and "2001" as a film.

You seem to have a certain amount of disdain for the raygun and spaceship era of "Flash Gordon" and "Buck Rogers," writing off huge chunks of the genre's history, while ignoring early standouts like "From Earth to the Moon" and "Frankenstein."

Likewise, the viewpoint mid-century sci-fi was all "Forbidden Planet" and "This Island Earth" style movies, but didn't also include "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," "The Fly," "The Thing from Another World," and "The Blob," all of which contain different point of views that aren't so easily reduced to "Cold War paranoia."

I kinda half agree with the premise that American sci-fi slowed in the 1960s, but it still feels weird to suggest the genre itself was moribund in a decade that saw the release of "Alphaville," "La Jetee," and "Je t'aime, Je t'aime."

But anyway: if you didn't find examples of good sci-fi during this decade, you weren't looking hard enough. You shoulda watched television. It's hard to suggest "2001" was some sort of major storytelling revelation when compared to "The Twilight Zone," "Star Trek," "The Prisoner," and "The Outer Limits." ("'2001' further distinguishes itself from previous Sci-Fi films by forgoing the overly talky, exposition-heavy, wonder-sapping scripts that often characterized the genre beforehand" ... uh, really?).

"2001" was a critically divisive film on its release, but boomer kids made it a success (like the "Titanic" of its day). It's interesting your write-up references the special effects mutiple times, and then goes on to reference other effects-driven movies, because that's where I think "2001's" real legacy lies. Pay top dollar, create triple-A visuals, and the audience will somehow materialize. It really doesn't matter what the story is (and "2001's" story is largely hokum).

PS: 1968 also saw the release of "Planet of the Apes," "Charly," and "Barbarella," so maybe the late 60s were not as moribund as you might think.

PPS & Re: deconstruction

[baby doll]

I kinda half agree with the premise that American sci-fi slowed in the 1960s, but it still feels weird to suggest the genre itself was moribund in a decade that saw the release of "Alphaville," "La Jetee," and "Je t'aime, Je t'aime."

Don't forget Seconds.

[StuSmallz]

Hoo boy. I don't wanna shit on your thread as you're just getting started...

*proceeds to shit on my thread just as I'm getting started*

; ) But, all kidding aside, I feel a lot of your points are based off of misunderstandings of what I've written here, so just to bullet point my responses to try to end this as quickly as possible...

• I have zero personal disdain for the 30's Sci-Fi serials; the reason why I didn't count them as constituting Sci-Fi as a major genre of film is because they weren't films, they were serials, and like the title said, this thread is about studying genre deconstruction in film. Same reason goes for why I didn't mention The Twilight Zone, The Prisoner, The Outer Limits or Star Trek either (although I've always felt that Trek has more in common with 50's Sci-Fi films than the 2001-onward works in the genre, and that's before I even note how Roddenberry himself said the Sci-Fi films of the decade helped inspire him to create the show in the first place).
• The reason why I didn't mention Frankenstein is because I consider it a Horror film with Sci-Fi elements, as opposed to being pure Sci-Fi, and I didn't mention From Earth To The Moon is because there was little reason for me to, seeing as how it's not only not one of the more iconic works of Sci-Fi from that decade, it's not even the most iconic Sci-Fi film from that year (so there's not much reason for me to mention that one instead of, say, It!, a film that actually had a measurable impact on the genre). Heck, it's not even the most iconic Verne adaptation from the 50's, which was a film that I already mentioned on the first place anyway. I'm not here to list every single Sci-Fi film ever made before 2001, because this is not a Wikipedia list, it's a "crash course" . I'm here to sum up the history of a popular genre in a paragraph (or two, if needed), write a couple more about how the film in question deconstructed and impacted it, and then move onto the next entry. If you're looking for a more blow-by-blow history of the genre, you should go watch this guy's videos (and then come right back here afterward of course, heh).
• Unless you're trying to take a fairly reductionist view, and boiling it down to be nothing more than substituting commies for invading aliens, it seems odd to me to say that The Day The Earth Stood Still doesn't deal with Cold War paranoia in its own way, seeing as how its plot was obviously inspired by the fear during the atomic age of World War III breaking out, and destroying the planet in the process (which, of course, is exactly what Klaatu threatens could happen in that film).
• It would be weird to suggest that Sci-Fi was a dying genre everywhere in the 60's, which is why I specified that that was only true "as far as major Hollywood releases went", a premise that you just admitted you partially agree with; what exactly is the issue here?
• Yes, really; not every 50's film in the genre was guilty of having overly talky, hand-holdy scripts, but I've noticed enough of them for it to feel like they were one of the elements that 2001 was reacting against with its lack of dialogue, and emphasis on visual storytelling. The best example of this is in Forbidden Planet, during the sequence where Dr. Morbius is giving Leslie Nielsen the guided tour of the remants of Krell civilization...

• ...and he literally doing nothing but talk about every piece of technology as he demonstrates them, explaining to us exactly what they are and what they do. And the video I posted is just part of that overall sequence, which legitimately lasts for a full 15 minutes in the actual film (I know because I timed the scene when I rewatched that movie for this thread). I can only imagine how much more wonder that sequence would've held for us if Nielsen had instead stumbled upon the remains by accident, without Morbius, and got to explore and figure everything out for himself. Anyway, while it's the most egregious example of choosing telling over showing in 50's Sci-Fi films I can think of, it certainly isn't the only one.
• '68 obviously saw a number of other Sci-Fi releases (although Charly wasn't one of them, because again, film with Sci-Fi elements does not automatically equal Sci-Fi film), but none of them have had the same sort of impact that 2001 has, and with the exception of Apes, none of them had seen any sort of release date earlier than 2001, plus 2001 went into production before any of them, so it's not hard to imagine that the green-lighting of the other '68 Sci-Fi's were at least partially inspired by the news of Kubrick's film beginning shooting, as studios are often wont to do.
• For the purposes of this thread, "deconstruction" when it comes to film genre is the process of stripping away the conventions that genres build up over time, in the process revealing previously hidden truths about the genre in question, which 2001 achieves by forgoing giving us any clear morals or easy answers about what exactly is going on with its story, as, unlike a lot of earlier Sci-Fi, it's completely honest about the fact that space, the future, and the universe as a whole are mysterious places/concepts that we'll never know all the answers to as a species, although none of that should discourage us from exploring all of them to the fullest.

[Irish]

It would be weird to suggest that Sci-Fi was a dying genre everywhere in the 60's, which is why I specified that that was only true "as far as major Hollywood releases went", a premise that you just admitted you partially agree with; what exactly is the issue here?

My issue is: How many qualifiers does your premise need to hold up? Is that premise any good if it requires you to limit your viewpoint to a very specific year, decade, or medium? I realize this is a movie discussion board (that also curiously includes forums for television, music, and literature) but discussions about film, any film, removed from context and history makes less and less sense to me.

Other points, in random order:

- I'm all for a crash course, but why did you elide ~30 years of history? That's the part I choke on, and why I read your initial post as a dismissal. The first movie you mention by name was made in 1951, and from there you very quickly point out that movies from that era feel dated. Not long after, you're leaping to the conclusions about "2001."

- "Frankenstein" is definitely sci-fi. The story is founded on science, and you couldn't tell the same story without it. Its themes around human bigotry and fear repeat in my recent examples: They're visible in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) and the Star Trek's "Devil in the Dark" (1967), among others. There's a reason why people have lately taken to calling Shelley the "Mother of Science Fiction," after all. (And here is a pretty good riff on why the novel is not only science fiction, but hard science fiction.)

- What you ascribe to "Forbidden Planet" can either be attributed to a different narrative style or plain ol' bad writing. Neither is unique to science fiction. For one, awkward exposition dumps are a lasting quality, it seems (cf two very recent examples in "Arrival" and "Annihilation"). But anyway, that there are immediate and obvious counter examples from the same era sorta negates your point about "2001's" narrative juice.

- The influence of the Cold War is evident in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," and "Thing from Another World," but the way each of them interprets that paranoia is markedly different. I didn't say anything about how one "doesn't deal with Cold War paranoia in its own way."

- Those "Flash Gordon" serials starred film actors and debuted in theaters. They're essentially shorts, written and edited to fill space in a commercial market. How are they not movies? Does "La Jetee" not qualify because it's 28 minutes long and employs still photography? When Quentin Tarantino took "The Hateful 8," cut it up into 4 pieces, and dropped it on Netflix as a form of mini-series, did it cease to be a movie?

- "Charly" is also science fiction because it requires a scientific backing to tell its story. Remove that, and the meaning changes.

... revealing previously hidden truths about the genre in question, which 2001 achieves by forgoing giving us any clear morals or easy answers about what exactly is going on with its story...

Ambiguity isn't a virtue, eg: that the Space Baby can't be explained to anyone's satisfaction makes the image less meaningful, not more.

...unlike a lot of earlier Sci-Fi, it's completely honest about the fact that space, the future, and the universe as a whole are mysterious places/concepts that we'll never know all the answers to as a species, although none of that should discourage us from exploring all of them to the fullest.

Oh, sure. It's sorta like "2001" tells us space is the final frontier. That humans have a need --- a mission, if you will -- to seek out new life and new civilizations. That we must boldly go where no one has gone before....

[StuSmallz]

My issue is: How many qualifiers does your premise need to hold up? Is that premise any good if it requires you to limit your viewpoint to a very specific year, decade, or medium? I realize this is a movie discussion board (that also curiously includes forums for television, music, and literature) but discussions about film, any film, removed from context and history makes less and less sense to me.
Other points, in random order:

- I'm all for a crash course, but why did you elide ~30 years of history? That's the part I choke on, and why I read your initial post as a dismissal. The first movie you mention by name was made in 1951, and from there you very quickly point out that movies from that era feel dated. Not long after, you're leaping to the conclusions about "2001."

- "Frankenstein" is definitely sci-fi. The story is founded on science, and you couldn't tell the same story without it. Its themes around human bigotry and fear repeat in my recent examples: They're visible in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) and the Star Trek's "Devil in the Dark" (1967), among others. There's a reason why people have lately taken to calling Shelley the "Mother of Science Fiction," after all. (And here is a pretty good riff on why the novel is not only science fiction, but hard science fiction.)

- What you ascribe to "Forbidden Planet" can either be attributed to a different narrative style or plain ol' bad writing. Neither is unique to science fiction. For one, awkward exposition dumps are a lasting quality, it seems (cf two very recent examples in "Arrival" and "Annihilation"). But anyway, that there are immediate and obvious counter examples from the same era sorta negates your point about "2001's" narrative juice.

- The influence of the Cold War is evident in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," and "Thing from Another World," but the way each of them interprets that paranoia is markedly different. I didn't say anything about how one "doesn't deal with Cold War paranoia in its own way."

- Those "Flash Gordon" serials starred film actors and debuted in theaters. They're essentially shorts, written and edited to fill space in a commercial market. How are they not movies? Does "La Jetee" not qualify because it's 28 minutes long and employs still photography? When Quentin Tarantino took "The Hateful 8," cut it up into 4 pieces, and dropped it on Netflix as a form of mini-series, did it cease to be a movie?

Ambiguity isn't a virtue, eg: that the Space Baby can't be explained to anyone's satisfaction makes the image less meaningful, not more.

Oh, sure. It's sorta like "2001" tells us space is the final frontier. That humans have a need --- a mission, if you will -- to seek out new life and new civilizations. That we must boldly go where no one has gone before....

That depends on the larger context that both the qualifiers and the main premise itself are surrounded by; in this case, both of them are legitimate, because this project focuses on singlular case studies of genre deconstructions in film, which only needs the relevant historical background of the specific films/aspects of the genre that the case study is deconstructing, and attempting to write a more all-encompassing history of Sci-Fi (or any other genre) here would only serve to render these write-ups as unnecessarily bloated, and would distract from the main goal of the project. It's the reason why I "elided" the handful of Sci-Fi films that existed before the 50's (which is a question you already answered yourself in that post anyway, by acknowledging that this is "a crash course"), because those were the films that defined the genre at that time, and why I focused on the dated aspects of them, even though there are 50's Sci-Fi films that I personally enjoy, because that's what Kubrick was primarily deconstructing with 2001 (as opposed to something like Metropolis).

I respect that you feel Frankenstein and Charly are Sci-Fi, but what genre(s) any movie falls into is always a subjective matter, and I don't feel that either of them are predominantly Sci-Fi films on the whole, so I couldn't include them in the historical background section (it's like how I feel Face/Off is predominantly an Action movie, even though it contains certain elements that are undeniably Sci-Fi).

Awkward/unnecessary exposition isn't a flaw that's exclusive to Sci-Fi (and I never said it was), but it's one that is particularly detrimental to that particular genre, since it tends to benefit from inspiring a sense of wonder within us inone way or another, and over-explaining things saps that quality. And, if Invasion Of The Body Snatchers is one of your counter-examples of a 50's Sci-Fi that wasn't burdened with exposition, than it's one that just serves to prove my point, as, while a short film, literally half of it (at least half) consists of nothing but people speculating, researching, or expositing information through dialogue (sometimes redundantly so), unraveling the mystery of what's going on in Santa Mira to us detail-by-detail, and it's impossible for me to name any recent Sci-Fi, Arrival, Annhilation, or otherwise, that held my hand anywhere near as much as Body Snatchers did. And all of that's without me even factoring in the overbearing musical cues, the introductory framing device, and the periodic, super-unnecessary voice-overs from Dr. Bennell, all of which have the cinematic effect of grabbing our feet (in addition to our hands) and dragging us through the film, which was otherwise pretty good (although obviously, it would've been better if those aspects had been toned down).

But regardless of what form that paranoia pops up in those films, it's still there, which is another way that 2001 distinguished itself from those films, since the echo of Cold War tensions is an aspect that Kubrick specifically choose to deemphasize in the final film.

No, because The Hateful Eight was still originally produced as a feature film, regardless of how the ADD-aiding execs at Netflix have it chopped up (and as opposed to the Flash Gordon serials, whose relevant influence on the genre I already acknowledged in my original write-up anyway, and again, I hold zero "disdain" for them personally).

Star Trek isn't comparable to 2001 in its portrayal of space exploration, because there's very little mystery, if any at all, in the average episode of that show (and certainly not in "The Devil In The Dark"), and whether or not the ambiguity of 2001 benefits it is another matter of personal opinion; I happen to feel that it does, and if you browse the opinions of other fans of the film, you'll find that a lot of them feel the same way.