Science Fiction Research Project - Considering Initial Research

After researching some of the very fundamental aspects of science fiction as a genre, here is what I took from it, and some of the points that interested me the most:

My favourite definition of what science fiction is was the one from Basil Davenport (literary critic and science fiction author) - “Science fiction is fiction based upon some imagined development of science, or upon the extrapolation of a tendency in society.”

I think this quote is the most simple and easy to understand out of the ones I read. I think the key word here is ‘extrapolation’ because whether you are considering scientific progress or human tendencies, it has to be an extrapolation of something pre- existing because thats what gives the story more weight and impact, the idea that this could possibly be a reality. It has to be derived from something we are already familiar with. 

I read a lot of interesting facts about the work of French novelist Jules Vern, author of works such as Journey to the Centre of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in 80 Days. As one of the earliest writers of science fiction in the form we know it in today, many of the aspects of some of his stories really did come true. The similarities between the story and spacecraft launch featured in his book From Earth to the Moon are astounding. At one point in this book he also gave a calculation for how long it would take for a bullet to travel to the moon, which as it turned out he calculated very accurately, demonstrating he was a very intelligent man. Similarly he featured a submarine powered by electricity in his book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, long before this was a reality. Its interesting to consider how far from reality these concepts were at the time, when considering things such as Star Trek predicting touchscreen tablets or flip phones 20 or 30 years before they were invented, its not as impressive, these were fairly logical steps in the advancement of technology that was already taking place, this advancement of technology was astutely extrapolated. The same might be able to be said for Vern’s prediction about the electric submarine, however things such as the spaceship launch were so ahead of their time. Fundamentally, he was an intelligent guy, maybe he’s no different then those who did literally undertake the moon landing, except he conceived the idea for a novel, not for an actual rocket launch. Maybe he put forth this idea in his book, people read this and talked about it, and it become the expectation for how a rocket launch would actually be performed. Is it possible that a work of science fiction can influence the future simply by putting forth an idea?

I also was very interested to hear of how Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is one of the most important works of science fiction. Ordinarily one would think of this as a work of horror, however it is a science fiction novel as well. The difference between it and the other science fiction works of its time, is that it was the first notable science fiction novel to consider the negative impact of future scientific innovation. While many stories at the time were adventure stories of astronauts jetting off to the stars, Frankenstein was a much more humanist story of a scientist creating a monster he later rejected, and this monster wreaking havoc as a result of the resentment he harbours for his creator. Nowadays we see a lot of science fiction that focuses on a negative impact form science, a good example of this is the Black Mirror tv series which, each episode, extrapolates a piece of technology or human tendency in a near future setting, and we see a dystopian often scary result.

For visual references I put a few pictures from movies, specifically those with really great cinematography. When talking about science fiction cinematography, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey  is undoubtedly the most beautiful and mesmerising example, when thinking about it though, the incredibly detailed sets for the Discovery One spacecraft actually don’t resemble a spacecraft from 2001 that much at all, however some aspects of the story, developed by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, such as Hal 9000 and the capabilities of AI technology are becoming more of a reality in the technological age we live in. 

Another great example of cinematography in a science fiction film is that of Blade Runner. Blade Runner really changed the look of sci-fi movies and influenced so many that came after it. The cyber punk city scape is dark and gloomy, bathed in neon lights and cluttered by technology such as flying vehicles and large screens. Artist Syd Mead who worked as “visual futurist” on the film said:

“I do not claim to ‘define the future,” said Mead in interview with Design Trophy about his influential work. “What I do is to think about why things are the way they are now, combine that awareness with how things were, are now and may be brought into reality. This defines the look’ of ‘future’ stuff. My scenarios are fanciful guesses that are the result of combining several layers of awareness and supposition.”

Again, the reason this worked so well is that it took influences from what we know/see in modern day, it wasn’t some fantastic science fiction fantasy city plucked out of thin air, they considered LA at the time, and built upon that.