Culture Crash: The Sci-Fi Film Genre

I’ve always been drawn to science fiction filmmaking. In part that’s because it allows the audience an avenue to explore those same questions humans have asked for generations. Movies like Interstellar and Contact help us question the nature of the universe and family and heck, even ourselves. A film like Arrival can explore such much about humanity and our behavior by looking at people through the prism of an alien race.

Sometimes these stories can be scary or funny or adventurous but at the end of the day, they’re just tales we tell each other around a fire, asking questions and proposing answers. Classics in the genre, like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris can often be seen as difficult or confusing. They run long, sometimes they have subtitles or outdated visual effects. But they can actually be quite simple and incredibly rewarding watching if audiences go in understanding that they may leave with more questions than answers.

Gattaca is another sci-fi movie that gives audiences something or a moral quandary to consider – as technology advances and human beings become more and more in control of everything around us, some big questions await us. And sometimes, like in the case of the movie Annihilation, sci-fi can just be one big expedition, with new terrors and delights around every corner.

Sci-fi is a genre that aspires to prompt thought and discussion, and for that reason, there’s always an audience for it.