WEBVTT

00:00:13.096 --> 00:00:18.452
Hi. I'm Wheeler Winston Dixon, James Ryan professor of Film Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,

00:00:18.452 --> 00:00:20.120
and this is Frame By Frame.

00:00:20.120 --> 00:00:27.661
Science fiction films first came about in the beginning of cinema with George Milies' "Trip to the Moon,"

00:00:27.661 --> 00:00:35.178
but they've come in sporadic waves of interest. I'm thinking, for example of "Things to Come,"

00:00:35.178 --> 00:00:39.740
the fantastic British film. Also Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" in 1927.

00:00:39.740 --> 00:00:45.952
But a vogue for science fiction didn't really hit till the 1950s in America,

00:00:45.952 --> 00:00:52.553
with things like "When Worlds Collide," "The Thing," which was one of the first great science fiction films.

00:00:52.553 --> 00:00:56.490
"The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Earth vs.the Flying Saucers,"

00:00:56.490 --> 00:01:00.961
And science fiction reflected a kind of Cold War paranoia.

00:01:00.961 --> 00:01:05.766
The other thing about science fiction is that it's tied curiously to the Western.

00:01:05.766 --> 00:01:11.772
As the westerns sort of became moribund, and now people don't make too many westerns these days,

00:01:11.772 --> 00:01:17.346
science fiction became "the final frontier." As manifest destiny was more or less explored,

00:01:17.346 --> 00:01:21.348
now space became the new frontier that had to be explored.

00:01:21.348 --> 00:01:28.755
And this, of course, lead to the success of the "Star Trek" series and "Star Wars."

00:01:28.755 --> 00:01:32.459
And of course, the dystopian science fiction films like "Alien."

00:01:32.459 --> 00:01:39.266
Now, here that we are in the 21st century, science fiction has become an absolute generic staple.

00:01:39.266 --> 00:01:41.969
Science fiction films are more popular than ever.

00:01:41.969 --> 00:01:46.115
I think they offer a sense of escape. They offer a sense of wonder.

00:01:46.115 --> 00:01:50.877
They offer a sense of exploring something beyond what we know.

00:01:50.877 --> 00:01:56.650
The world has become very small now. We're in touch with everyone around the world, whether we like to or not.

00:01:56.650 --> 00:02:02.346
And science fiction offers us a sense that there's frontier out there that we don't know...

00:02:02.346 --> 00:02:04.625
There's civilizations out there that we don't know,

00:02:04.625 --> 00:02:07.260
and science fiction offers us a way to escape,

00:02:07.260 --> 00:02:11.164
but also it's a commentary on the smallness of our world right now,

00:02:11.164 --> 00:02:15.372
and also it projects into the future the possibilities of what can happen,

00:02:15.372 --> 00:02:22.109
in terms of both good, or in terms of bad... basically a dystopian future like "Blade Runner,"

00:02:22.109 --> 00:02:24.242
in which the future does not work.

00:02:24.242 --> 00:02:28.849
So science fiction projects our fear and our hopes on the cinema screen.