Fears and Questions of Science Fiction

Not surprisingly the primary ‘question’ a science fiction story asks is:  ‘What if…?’ What if we could travel in time? What if we could clone humans? What if we discovered alien beings? What if we could make artificial intelligence robots? What separates these questions from fantasy and ensures they resonate with viewers in profound and effecting ways is the element of plausibility.   In order for it to be science fiction the ‘what if’ has to propose something which could be plausible in the future, sometimes the very near future,  when viewed from the here and now.  When we ask the question ‘What if’ we are inspired by the possibilities, but the question also raises fear: fear of the ramifications of our inquisitiveness, our lesser nature, our hubris.

This is where the Science comes in.

The exploitation of Science in SciFi cinema can range widely. From so called ‘Hard’ SciFi where the science is specifically linked to real-world advances and probable technologies; through to much more loose and far-fetched applications of science. In any case along that continuum from likely to farfetched,  the ‘science’ at the heart of the SciFi narrative can be defined as simply the plausible ability to do that which we otherwise cannot and that this ability – as Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling famously described – is The improbable made possible. This distinction is important as it tells us what it is that removes SciFi from Fantasy and it also explains some of the power Sci Fi has to garner intense cultural resonance – it has plausibility and and it has ramifications for the here and the now.

Questions

Novelist Steven Barnes – in an article entitled ‘The three questions of science fiction writing“ - takes the concept of the ‘What if’ scenario further to identify key variations.  These are:

What If? – If Only? – If this goes on..?

What if scenarios present us with an instigation, an inciting technology or scientific development that presents human curiosity with a challenge and/or threat. If Only by contrast has an intrinsically emotive and longing quality, a science fiction fuelled by deep desire to progress. Whereas the third of the trio, If this Goes On, has decidedly a tone of the cautionary tale, a recognition of a current trajectory that must be curtailed or else…

What If…

The What if scenario may be seen to be at the heart of science fiction, that is Questioning and Exploring. Blade Runner for example is not cautioning against robots with human emotions so much as it is exploring what it means to be human when human emotions and artificially intelligent memories can be manufactured.

If Only…

In looking for examples of If Only SciFi we may see Dr Who as a science fiction premised on longing and desire. To travel beyond the stairs, (stairs or stars?) to travel in time, to see wonders and sights of other worlds and other times, these are the desires primarily expressed by the Doctor’s companions. Of course adventures and dangers ensue as a result of these desires and in particular their longing to see across space and time has ramifications for their personal lives in their everyday world. But ultimately Dr Who celebrates and endorses the If Only longing by exploring and overcoming the fears inherent in stepping out of one world and into another. The ‘science’ of space/time travel in Dr Who enables and satisfies that longing, explores its pitfalls but doesn’t ultimately caution against it.

If this goes on…?

At the other end of the spectrum we can see the distinctly cautionary warning that the If this Goes On scenario embodies within SciFi cinema. Dystopian science fiction makes great use of the fears conjured up by the intrinsic warning in the phrase If this Goes On. The film adaptation of George Orwell’s novel, 1984, for example, presents a world where invasive surveillance through ‘tele-screens’ and the media manipulations of a totalitarian government create a frightening vision of what our society might become if we do not heed the warnings about proliferation of surveillance technology and government invasion of privacy. Similarly GATTACA serves as a profoundly cautionary tale against the misuse of genetic information and genetic profiling.

What if, If Only and If this Goes On…  are, in a sense, scenario questions.  They establish a framework for generating and modulating the feelings viewers have as they enter into the world of the story and the contract of viewing.  And this, of course, is at the heart of understanding genre: recognition that individual genres elicit and connect with specific modes of emotion in viewers. More particularly that viewers enter into the viewing contract with expectations about how that viewing experience will make them feel. As we select the DVD from the rental store or buy the movie ticket at the box office we may not possess knowledge of what will happen in the film, but we do have clear expectations of what we hope and expect to feel from watching the film based on the genre we have chosen.

This leads us to ask what exactly are the essential feeling-states of Science Fiction? Regardless of whether it is robots, aliens, time-travel or big-brother, what are the emotional expectations we have going into a SciFi genre film? All three of our questions – What if, If Only and If this Goes On – embody a clear sense of fear and apprehension, a trepidation for what we might discover at the end of the SciFi premise. Certainly fear plays a big part in Science Fiction, an undeniable fear of progress.  But since there are many genres that deal tangibly with fear – not the least of which being Horror – it would seem inadequate to paint SciFi in such a broad stroke. What separates out Science Fiction from Horror is how Fear is partnered, tempered and contextualised by Awe.

Science Fiction fuels viewer expectations for  between being Awed by the ‘science’ – the ability to do that which otherwise could not be done – and Fearing the ramifications of that ‘science’. The feeling-state of Awe – the sudden intake of breath, the sublime friction point of excitement, spectacle and shock – is garnered from a sense of desire, curiosity or wanting. Thus the combination of Fear and Awe in Science Fiction, which gives it so much resonance is a tug-o-war pulled equally in disparate directions. Wanting and dreading, excitement and apprehension derived from the same idea, spectacle, image or concept.

What this duality does is frame the fears of Science Fiction in a very particular context, one quite apart and unique from the fear constructs of other genres such as Horror and Noir. Daniel Chandler in his article ‘Imagining Futures, Dramatising Fears‘

outlines four fundamental fears related to technology and science; the fear of HumanityBeing Supplanted, the fear of Losing our Souls,  the fear of Losing Control, and  the fear of Knowing too Much.  Each of these fears taps into a specific relationship with the empowering science or technology that it is at the heart of a SciFi premise.

Humanity Being Supplanted

The fear of humanity being supplanted is a common pattern in modern SciFi and draws upon a long history of techno-fear of machines replacing humans that has its roots mostly in the industrial revolution. The premise of such a fear is a ‘thin edge of the wedge’ mindset where by the supplanting of humans by machines takes place by degrees – first machines replace menial tasks then progressively more and more complex duties are taken from human hands until ultimately judgement, thought and decision-making are wholly supplanted by machines or robots. The SciFi film then presents a vision that is the thick-end of that wedge with the viewer observing the fearful end result of the intrusion of a thin-edge they can viably see in their own present day and real-world.

Robocop exemplifies this fear by the supplanting of flesh and blood cops with a cyborg robotic policeman. This first stage of Robocop is threatening enough to other police officers and to the viewer’s sense of discretion and empathetic judgement that (which are? Don’t quite get the word order in this sentence ) are, or at least supposed to be, embodied by human-police. But the real examination of humanity-supplanted comes when a second fully-robotic cop (named ED-209), with no human cyborg amalgam at all, is manufactured. What is tested by the film is whether the cyborg Robocop’s human side will triumph over his mechanical side and transcend his machine nature to defeat the all-machine ED-209. In a similar manner, Kubrick’s 2001 possess the same challenges of humanity potentially being supplanted with the computer HAL and the alien presence, both of which serve as pressures on what we know and perceive to be human. The fear in 2001 is of humanity’s obsolescence in the face of higher intelligences – both of our own making (robots) and outside of our comprehension (alien life).

What Science Fiction of this kind holds as a philosophical premise – a core belief – is the superiority of humanity over machine is not in spite of human flaws, but because of them. This perspective tessellates with the second Science Fiction fear, that of losing our Soul. The two may seem similar but have distinctly different emphasis.

Losing our Souls

The loss of Soul is concerned with humanity being lost rather than stolen, damaged rather than replaced. The loss of Soul is the loss of a human essence, the dissolving of that ephemeral empathetic quality that binds humans together. SciFi films built on this fear explore how a technology, a science, a societal construct breaks down human empathy or forces us to question what it takes to be human.

The prominent example of Science Fiction premised on the fear of losing our Soul can be seen in Blade Runner. Here the very notion of what is ‘human’ is challenged by the creation of robots – not the tin-man, light-flashing, robots of the 1950’s, but robots who resemble humans in every way including being in possession of memories. Empathy is the core constituent here, where the distinction between what is human or not is based on an empathy test delivered by a Voight-Kampff machine; a kind of polygraph for humanity. What becomes apparent is that in a decayed future world where animals are synthetic and humanity is living a depressing subsistence in a rain-soaked city, the distinction between robot and human is razor thin. Humans having so lost their empathy for each other that they cannot recognise humanity in their creations – just as Dr Frankenstein failed to recognise the humanity in his monster. Ultimately Blade Runner prompts us to ask what makes the robots any less human than the humans? Have we indeed lost our soul when we need a machine to determine if a someone has one?

Similar in the impetus of social fear but divergent in concept is Children of Men; a dystopian view of a future society where the unvoiced instigator is that human tinkering and unrestrained progress has rendered the human race infertile. Crucially however in the exploration of a SciFi fear of losing our Soul Children of Men presents humanity’s infertility as not nearly as scary or dreadful as the in-humanity displayed by the remaining humans toward each other. In the case of Children of Men (as with much dystopian SciFi) the ‘science’ of the fiction is inverted to be an absence, removal or failing of a science. Just as The Road Warrior deals with the absence of the technology of oil and energy, Children of Men plays out in a world where biological science has failed. Subsequently the core anxiety of the film is concerned with empathy and the fear of losing our Soul when we are faced with the loss of or race. Just as with Blade Runner and numerous other SciFi films built on this fear, the examination is one where the stakes are higher than life and death, the essence of ourselves is it at risk, something worth more than just survival. It is the power of this premise-fear that elevates these Science Fiction films to resonate far and wide with audiences

Losing Control

Arguably the most common (and often financially successful) Science Fiction fear is that of losing control. SciFi author and archaeologist Ronald Wright has described the notion of a ‘progress-trap’; “the club is better than the fist, the arrow better than the club, the bullet better than the arrow… But when the bang we can make can blow up our world, we have made rather too much progress.”

This observation of a critical-mass of technological progress – a point where the shining possibility of human cleverness goes too far – is at the very heart of much science fiction engaging with the fear of losing control.

Such SciFi often begins with a great deal of awe rather than fear; awe at spectacular possibility, awe-inspired excitement and thrill. These SciFi films begin with the successes of the science but then, as the control over what has been wrought begins to fall apart we experience awe transform into fear – success into failure. Jurassic Park serves as a preeminent example of this experience. The science and technology that brings dinosaurs to life inspires awe and excitement in the characters and audience alike. But as control slips away, as the maker loses control of what they have made, awe turns to fear; fear of our own creations that have gone too far into the ‘progress-trap’.

Numerous films follow this highly effective pattern. In Back to the future the awe and thrill of time-travel for Marty McFly becomes a fear of losing his family and himself as he, through incident and accident, loses control of time by changing it. In The Fly the awe of a series of successful teleportations turns to fearful horror as control over the teleport machine is lost and a human is genetically spliced with a fly. In Westworld the awe of a grand fantasy played out in a Wild West theme park turns to fear as the robots, once so exciting, evoke horror as control is lost.

What all these films have in common through the fear of losing control is essentially a technological back-fire; a science that should have been, and appeared to be, a success backfiring on the user in stupendous, tragic, spectacular and high-stakes ways.

Knowing Too Much

The last of the four fears, that of knowing too much, presents us with a potentially more nuanced and complex form of Science Fiction fear. Here the dramatic driver is focused less on what humankind can do with a given science or technology, but rather what a science or technology allows us to know. Essentially this is forbidden knowledge and the Sci-Fi drama explores the ramifications of knowing that which was, and perhaps should have remained, unknown. These films play-out on a canvas of the struggle between acceptance and rejection of knowledge. The Matrix works intimately with this fear, the choice between blissful ignorance and painful truth represented in the choice between Blue pill and Red pill. The character and the audience swallow the Red pill, and are yanked from a recognisable, calm, modern world to a dystopian, decrepit wasteland beyond the Matrix. Fear is wrapped up indistinguishably with Awe as we are confronted with the horror of knowing too much. Similarly, in Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys the character of Cole wrestles with what he knows of the future and is pushed to reject that knowledge, seeking to embrace safety in ignorance. Further, his own childhood memories represent a knowledge he must confront, knowledge of his own death to come.Cole fears knowing too much as the audience themselves are challenged to examine their own perspective how much knowledge is too much? At what point does knowledge undermine humanity and cripple the free-will that human endeavour is built on?

What are we afraid of?

There can be a perception that SciFi relies on high-budget production resources yet numerous successes such as District 9, Moon and Primer show that popular, critical and financial success can be generated in medium, small and micro-budget productions – not to mention engaging online Webseries RIESE Aidan5, After Judgement and Kirill. Moreover the dynamism and veracity of on-line communities around SciFi fans provide direct and grass-roots marketing opportunities just waiting to be tapped.

All we need work out now is what is it that we are afraid of here and now? What is the progress trap we fear most?