Images and Imagination: The First 75 Years of Science Fiction Movies

• Week 1: The dawn of the genre – the early silent films and the birth of ‘special effects’
  The earliest films that could be considered ‘science fiction’ were frequently short comedies with rudimentary plots, usually revolving around mishaps with some fabulous contraption or a fanciful voyage. They also demonstrated early developments in ‘trick photography’ that laid the groundwork for increasingly sophisticated ‘special effects’ that became a hallmark of the genre in subsequent decades.  
• Week 2: Audiences demand more – silent epics, early ‘talkies’ and serial adventures
  By the mid-1910s, the novelty of ‘moving pictures’ was wearing off and simple shorts were losing audiences to longer, ambitious and expensive adventure films, such as 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea and The Lost World. In postwar Europe, films such as Himmelskibet advocated peace while Fritz Lang’s dystopian masterpiece Metropolis and the Soviet Aelita, Queen of Mars championed revolution and social change. The advent of sound lured fresh audiences, both to watch features such as King Kong and to follow increasingly popular ‘chapter-plays’ such as Flash Gordon, The Phantom Empire, The Undersea Kingdom or The Purple Monster Strikes.   
• Week 3: 1950s Hollywood – big bugs, bombs and ‘reds under the beds’
  As the Cold War raged, American films in the post-atomic decade often reflected societal fears of infiltration, invasion and Armageddon. Bigger budgets and increasingly sophisticated special effects allowed realistic ‘hard science’ spectaculars, such as Destination Moon or Forbidden Planet. The burgeoning teen market, the advent of drive-ins and double-bills, and competition from television led to the production of dozens of inexpensive ‘B-movies’, many featuring giant bugs, invisible invaders, flying saucers, heroic teenagers and scantily clad space-women. 
• Week 4: Hollywood films, 1960-1977 – bigger ideas and bigger budgets
  The Cold War heats up then cools off and cultural changes include increased distrust of authority and anti-militarism. As the real space program eclipsed the frugal space-operas of the 1950s, films began to reflect new concerns: over-population, environmental disasters and rogue technologies. Continued improvements in special effects included computer-controlled cameras that allowed the seamless integration of multiple images and, in the early 1970s, the first applications of the next generation of visual magic: computer-generated imagery (CGI).  
• Week 5: European films, 1950-1977 – some cerebral, some satirical, some silly
  Most Soviet-bloc science fiction films were imaginative, extremely well made and, perhaps reflecting doctrinal austerity, serious, realistic and sombre. France leaned towards the avant-garde, with contributions by New Wave directors Roger Vadim, Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Italy churned out cheap, stylish and colourful space-operas; and England produced a mix of Hollywood knockoffs and uniquely British films, including the adventures of one of the most enduring characters in the genre: Doctor Who (or just ‘The Doctor’ to purists).  
• Week 6: Japanese films, 1950-1977 – tokusatsu and diakaiju eiga
  Japanese science fiction grew out of the ashes of the Second World War and themes of peace, unity, cooperation and, above all, the existential threat of atomic weapons were common. Tokusatsu means ‘special filming’ and often refers to films replete with special effects, such as The Mysterians, a space invasion epic. Diakaiju eiga means ‘giant-monster movies’, an extremely popular and lucrative genre in Japan, best exemplified by the long-running and constantly mutating Godzilla franchise.    

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Recognize many of the more prolific directors, actors, technicians and designers who contributed to the genre over the decades
• Identify common narrative themes in science fiction films and appreciate how these themes reflected societal hopes and concerns, evolving over time
• Discuss the role of ‘special effects’ in science fiction films and how they showcased technological advances in film production over the decades
• Compare and contrast the styles, themes and aesthetics of American, European and Asian science fiction films

• Lectures
• Viewing film clips and images
• Participation in discussions
  
• Supplementary resources accessed through Canvas
  
• Reflective essay (applicable only to certificate students)

No textbook is required. We will provide all course materials online.