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Odds & Ends: The Making of 2001
Month: August 2019
Early Proto-Science Fiction
The earliest ancestors of science fiction contain many of the tropes we see in classic examples of the genre – space travel, alien creatures, robots, etc. However, early proto-science fiction is not really concerned with science itself – the “sci-fi” aspects typically have magical or mystical origins.
Ramayana – Indian epic poem (5th – 4th century BCE)
• Flying machines
• Advanced weaponry
A True History – Lucian of Samosata (2nd century)
• Travel to the moon
• Unusual life forms
• War between the armies of the moon and sun
• Also considered an early example of satire
One Thousand and One Nights – Arabic folk tale collection (largely compiled 8th to 12th century)
• Description of homes on the moon
• Space travel
• Unusual alien creatures
• Utopian societies
• Robots and automata
Tale of the Bamboo Cutter – Japanese folk tale (10th century)
• Princess from the moon raised by earthlings
• Lunar travel
• Aliens with superior technology
• Recently adapted by Studio Ghibli as The Tale of Princess Kaguya
European Medieval Literature (5th-15th century)
• Few examples of space travel or alien creatures
• Suspended animation, robots, and automata feature in some romances
• Advanced technology in Chaucer’s The Squire’s Tale
Ramayana 
True History 
Bamboo Cutter 
1001 Nights 
Squire’s Tale
Post-Enlightenment
The scientific revolution also ushered in the works that could be considered the first actual science fiction stories.
Somnium – novel by Johannes Kepler (1634)
• Kepler was an astronomer and mathematician
• The story features Kepler’s real-life mentor, Tycho Brahe
• Lunar daemons transport humans to the moon
• Humans must deal with extreme cold and lack of oxygen
• Humans are sedated for space travel
• Deceleration before lunar entry
• Scientific details such as the size of the moon and its distance from the Earth and descriptions of an eclipse
• It was all a dream!
Frankenstein – novel by Mary Shelley (1818)
• Gothic horror tradition
• Mad scientist
• Experimentations with advanced technology
• Scientific progress as a moral question
• No aliens, but often cited as the first “real” science fiction story
• Shelley wrote other early science fiction pieces as well, including the post-apocalyptic novel The Last Man
The novels of Jules Verne (1828-1905)
• Science-oriented adventure stories
• Incorporation of cutting edge or future technology
• Imagined technology is explained in detail
• Major examples include Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and From the Earth to the Moon
The Novels of H. G. Wells (1866-1946)
• Uses science and technology to comment on society
• Technology is not explained in great detail
• The “moral” is more important than the science
• Major examples include The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine
Somnium 
Frankenstein 
From the Earth to the Moon 
War of the Worlds
The First Science Fiction Films
“Primitive” films – those created during the first decade or so after the invention of the motion picture camera – were short, usually less than one minute. They most often captured simple scenes of daily life or slapstick comedy and were considered novel diversions. This began to change in 1902 with the first science fiction epic.
La Voyage dans la Lune – short film directed by Georges Méliès (1902)
• Melies was a stage magician and his training is apparent in his use of optical effects and the detached framing of the images
• Méliès was among the first to see the narrative potential in the medium
• Méliès is considered the father of movie visual effects
• Unusually long, at around twelve minutes
• Production took three months and cost around 10,000 francs
• The film features scientific debate and planning, space travel in a rocket, the lunar environment, and alien creatures
• The film was hugely popular and widely pirated
(T)he most heart-warming thing about Méliès is that he was both an experimental film maker and a people’s film maker.
Norman McLaren
Aelita: Queen of Mars – directed by Yakov Protazanov (1924)
• One of the first feature-length science fiction films
• A young man travels to Mars via rocket ship after a mysterious message is received
• The queen of Mars falls in love with the protagonist after she sees him through a telescope
• It was all a dream!
Metropolis – directed by Fritz Lang (1927)
• Set in a dystopian cityscape
• Features a humanlike robot that impersonates one of the human characters
• No aliens, but a huge impact – one of the great silent films
• Pioneering special effects work, including extensive miniatures
Pulp
In the 1920s and 30s, science fiction began to reach a new audience through “pulp” magazines – inexpensive periodicals with entertaining stories and salacious cover art. During this time, serial science fiction films began to appear in theaters as well, offering high action and cliffhanger endings to patrons seeking escapist entertainment.
Flash Gordon – serial films directed by Frederick Stephani (1936)
• Serials were short films, screened weekly in theaters, that told a continuous story
• A planet is on a collision course with Earth
• An eccentric doctor builds a rocket, hoping to avert catastrophe
• Strange creatures and humanlike aliens are encountered on the approaching planet
The War of the Worlds – radio drama directed by Orson Welles (1938)
• Adapted from the novel by H. G. Wells and performed by Welle’s Mercury Theatre
• Keeps the general premise of the original novel, but changes the setting and narrative framing
• Aired as a Halloween special on October 30
• Introduced as a dramatization at the beginning of the program, but presented as a news bulletin, causing some widespread confusion and panic
Buck Rogers – serial films directed by Ford Beebe and Saul Goodkind (1939)
• Two soldiers are placed in suspended animation after a dirigible crash and awaken 500 years later
• The world of 2440 is ruled by an evil dictator
• Buck travels to Saturn to enlist help in the fight against evil on Earth
• Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers were both played by Buster Crabbe
The Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon serials both featured “crawling” opening titles that summarized the previous episodes – these would become the inspiration for Star Wars‘ iconic opening text crawl.
The Golden Age
By the 1940s, science fiction was beginning to grow up. Writers such as Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, L. Ron Hubbard, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov began to publish groundbreaking works, which helped legitimize the genre. This helped propel the production of a number of notable science fiction films in the 1950s.
The Day the Earth Stood Still – directed by Robert Wise (1951)
• A humanoid alien and his intimidating robot companion travel to Earth in a flying saucer to warn humanity of the dangers of atomic power
• Earth is invited to join an interplanetary federation – the alternative is destruction
• Klaatu barada nikto!
The War of the Worlds – directed by Byron Haskin (1953)
• Also adapted from Wells’ novel
• The setting, characters, and appearance of the aliens was changed for the film
• The film has religious aspects not present in the book
• The spacecraft have a unique design that set it apart from the flying saucers seen in films like The Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet – directed by Fred Wilcox (1956)
• A crew is sent to investigate the fate of a group of scientists living on a remote planet called Altair
• A highly advanced alien civilization called the Krell once thrived on the planet
• The long-extinct aliens became too powerful for their own good
Robby the Robot became a science fiction icon after Forbidden Planet and has had cameos a number of films and television shows – including The Twilight Zone, The Addams Family, Columbo, and Gremlins.
The Blob – directed by Irvin Yeaworth (1958)
• A meteorite carries an alien jelly to Earth
• The blob consumes everything it touches, but is eventually defeated with cold
• Steve McQueen’s feature debut
Plan 9 From Outer Space – directed by the amazing Ed Wood (1959)
• Independent b-movie wherein aliens resurrect dead humans to stop them from creating a doomsday machine
• This was Bela Lugosi’s last film – he died before production began and unrelated footage shot by Wood was incorporated
• Full of continuity errors, obvious effects shots, and wooden dialog
• Worst movie ever?