“Remember, science fiction’s always been the kind of first level alert to think about things to come. It’s easier for an audience to take warnings from sci-fi without feeling that we’re preaching to them. Every science fiction movie I have ever seen, any one that’s worth its weight in celluloid, warns us about things that ultimately come true.” – Steven Spielberg
People seem much less interested in superhero settings than just a few years ago. However, many people seem to be interested in Sci-Fi nowadays. Is it because people simply got bored of superhero movies and want a change? Or is there a deeper reason than that?
I would claim that people seem to be more interested in Sci-Fi because of recent events and technological advancements that make individuals feel like they are swept up in a world much bigger than them and want to find a way to navigate through the chaos and survive. Which is the main theme in most Sci-Fi settings. Meanwhile, superhero movies seem to portray stories of self-actualization.
As the world faces a scary degree of globalization, corporate power, the threat of a world war, and the sudden emergence of AI, there is less room for people to think about self-actualization.
If you look at the history of Sci-Fi, each period’s Sci-Fi works portrayed how people at the time envisioned the world in the future. So, if we are able to see how people think the world will end up through Sci-Fi, judging from the most recent Sci-Fi works, it seems that people have a very pessimistic and dystopian vision of the future.
Whereas during the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Science Fiction had a much more positive and explorative theme, portraying a future where good-hearted humans defeat evil in the universe and spread their righteous democracy.
Historical Context of Science Fiction
Sci-fi has no definition with a consensus. That is why some say that Sci-Fi’s roots are in early fantastic roots like the Epic of Gilgamesh. Others claim that Sci-Fi could have only begun following significant scientific and technological advancements between the 17th and 19th centuries.
However, you cannot deny the existence of clear Sci-Fi elements in the Hindu epic Ramayana, written between the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. These elements include flying machines that are able to travel into space or underwater.
One Thousand and One Nights also contains many stories with Sci-Fi elements, such as flying through space and discovering ancient advanced technology. So, the claim that Sci-Fi began between the 17th and 19th centuries CE might be valid, but these ancient and medieval epics clearly influenced Sci-Fi as we know it today.
Major Sci-Fi Contributions in the 19th Century
The 19th Century was a significant developmental period for Sci-Fi. Mary Shelley, for example, made major contributions to Sci-Fi, such as her famous novel Frankenstein, which included the concept of the mad scientist and using technology for achievements beyond the scientific capabilities of the time. She also wrote Roger Dodsworth: The Reanimated Englishman, a story about a man who is buried in the snow and gets reanimated decades later.
The Last Man is another of Shelley’s famous works. It is a dystopian, apocalyptic Science Fiction novel set in Europe in the late 21st Century after a bubonic plague pandemic resulted in the near extinction of mankind.
H. G. Wells also had a profound impact on Sci-Fi. He was clearly influenced by the concept of Darwinian Evolution and the increasing inequality and class divisions of his era when he wrote The Time Machine. A story about a time traveler who journeys into the future and finds that the class divisions in Victorian England had led to the classes’ evolution into two different species, the childlike Eloi and ape-resembling, savage Morlocks.
Other writers like Alexander Veltman significantly contributed to the development of the genre, with works like MMMCDXLVIII god: Rukopisʹ Martyna-Zadeka (3448 A.D.: a manuscript by Martin Zadek), a book set in the 35th Century that describes a utopian fictional country of Bosphorania, and how if the wrong person took control of a utopia, they could undo all the good that was previously done and drive such a place to ruin.
The Golden Age
The 1920s witnessed the birth of pulp magazines like Amazing Stories, which were magazines dedicated to the genre called Scientifiction at the time. These magazines led to the Golden Age of Science Fiction in the 40s and 50s. Sci-Fi during the Golden Age was predominantly comprised of linear narratives and heroes solving problems and encountering threats in a space opera or technological adventure.
That period also included works like George Orwell’s 1984 and Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, which included dystopian themes of the world going bad due to totalitarianism.
John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction Magazine, influenced how science fiction evolved during the Golden Age. During his tenure, he shifted the focus of these stories from the Sci-Fi gadgets to the characters using them.
There are conflicting opinions, however, on which period is considered the Golden Age. Some even claim that we are in a golden age right now because of the rapid increase in Sci-Fi’s popularity and the notable works that are coming out that dwarf anything that came out in the 50s.
Astounding Science Fiction
Astounding Science Fiction was a big part of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. It was initially titled Astounding Stories of Science Fiction and has since been renamed several times. John W. Campbell started out as a writer at astounding, writing works such as Twilight. Later, however, he became the magazine editor, beginning what we now know as the golden age of Science Fiction.
Campbell published many stories as editor, including Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, A. E. van Vogt’s Slan, and several stories by Robert A. Heinlein.
By 1950, new Sci-Fi magazines appeared on the market. They became competitors of Astounding Science Fiction, and with Campbell’s interest in Pseudo-Science topics like Dianetics, a significant part of Astounding’s fanbase began turning to magazines like Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science instead.
Astounding continued to publish classics like Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity and Tom Godwin’s The Cold Equations. It also remained a popular magazine even after losing a portion of its fanbase.
Astounding Science Fiction significantly influenced the genre, which introduced many to Science Fiction and greatly increased the genre’s popularity.
Post WW2
After the development of the Atomic Bomb and during the Cold War, people started getting interested in science due to the threat of extinction that could be caused by nuclear war. Sci-fi films also started gaining popularity in this period, including On the Beach, an adaptation of Nevil Shute’s novel of the same name.
On the Beach depicts the world in the aftermath of a nuclear war. The movie is set in 1964 after World War III resulted in the death of all humans in the Northern Hemisphere, while the air currents are slowly carrying the fallout to the Southern Hemisphere. This movie clearly depicts the fears of the period after World War II.
The genre stagnated in the 1960s, and Most Sci-Fi works at the time seemed to be for children. However, it wasn’t completely dead, with movies like Fahrenheit 451, Fantastic Voyage, and Barbarella coming out in the late 1960s.
1990s – 2000s
Escapism was a prevalent theme in 1990s Sci-Fi. However, internet-themed films started becoming popular with the emergence of the World Wide Web and the Cyberpunk genre. Disaster films also remained popular in the 1990s.
In the 2000s, political commentary movies like A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Minority Report delved into complex themes like technology’s impact on society, human rights, and the nature of consciousness. A.I. Artificial Intelligence explores what it means to be human, while Minority Report explores the theme of privacy in the face of increasing surveillance.
Current Renaissance in Sci-Fi
Even though science fiction was never dead, 2015 was the beginning of a resurgence in Sci-Fi works, with movies like Ex Machina, Dune, Blade Runner 2049, and Arrival coming out. Sci-Fi video games also emerged in this period, including Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Detroit: Become Human, and Cyberpunk 2077.
Most of these Sci-Fi works, however, have dystopian themes. Both Dune and Blade Runner 2049 are set in clearly dystopian worlds, while Ex Machina explores AI’s troubling potential and what it could possibly be capable of doing.
Arrival, however, has a sense of wonder and mystery, and it’s quite an optimistic movie compared to recent Sci-Fi movies. And in a world with this much negativity, a little positivity can be a breath of fresh air.
Google Trends shows that interest in the genre has grown over the past decade, reaching its peak in 2020, possibly due to COVID-19’s psychological effect on people.
Sci-Fi Reflecting Societal Hopes
Sci-Fi can be a platform for humans to express their hopes and dreams. Although the genre is predominantly pessimistic these days, there are still some optimistic themes. Recent Star Trek entries still feature themes of altruism and space exploration.
Pacific Rim also has a somewhat positive theme. Even though humanity is being attacked by giant monsters, the movie shows humanity banding together to fight their common enemy, which is a pretty optimistic idea, given what history tells us.
Optimistic themes in fiction are essential, especially in Sci-Fi. The sense of wonder that optimistic Sci-Fi themes give a person is why many became scientists and space enthusiasts, contributing to the progress of programs like NASA and SpaceX. And we never know what Sci-Fi work will inspire future scientists to make marvelous discoveries that could lead humanity toward a better path.
Sci-Fi Reflecting Societal Fears
However, given the past few years, it is understandable that Sci-Fi writers are leaning toward a more dark and dystopian theme. Recently, we’ve seen works with elements of nuclear war, superintelligent AI, and environmental collapse.
For example, CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 explores what the future could look like under the most extreme form of Capitalism, where corporations are significantly more powerful than entire countries and could wage entire wars with each other.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a game that also has a dystopian theme. Tensions rise between people who have had cybernetic implants, who are called “Augs,” and those who haven’t. These tensions lead to augs being treated like second-class citizens and the ones in Prague eventually being relocated to a city built especially for augmented people.
The Role of Sci-Fi in Shaping Public Perception
Sci-Fi also plays an essential role in shaping public perception and creating conversation topics nobody had considered before. Think of the profound effect movies like Ex Machina had on public perception, to what degree it influenced how people thought of AI rights, and whether we should consider them to be conscious beings instead of soulless programs.
Moreover, many concepts that appeared in Sci-Fi and were thought of as crazy ideas are now not so far from reality. Concepts like putting chips and data shards in your brain are being implemented now. And I don’t think a world that looks like Minority Report is too far from the reality we are currently living in.
The Future of Sci-Fi
I believe the future of Sci-Fi will include many themes that tackle the concept of consciousness, what it means to be human, and the value of synthetic life forms in comparison to human life, and that is because of the continuous evolution of AI capabilities and robotics that may lead to the emergence of robots that are hard to distinguish from normal humans.
Solarpunk is a subgenre that I see Sci-Fi possibly leaning toward in the coming years with the rising resource and environmental concerns. Solarpunk gives an optimistic view of the future, where people turn to sustainable methods that are interconnected with nature to solve the problems of energy and resource shortages.
Conclusion
Ultimately, Sci-Fi will always remain a platform people can use to reflect their visions of the future, whether they are visions of destruction and totalitarianism or prosperity and progress. It will also remain an important tool to deal with and think about contemporary issues that face the world by being under the umbrella of fiction, which allows more freedom of expression.
So, next time you read, watch, or play something with a Sci-Fi theme, consider what contemporary issues or vision of the future it explores.
What’s Your Sci-Fi Story?
What are your favorite Sci-Fi works? How did they impact you? And what visions of the future or contemporary issues did they explore?
Here’s a list of some of my favorite Sci-Fi works if you would like to explore them:
Movies and Shows:
- The Blade Runner franchise
- Inception
- Black Mirror
- Psycho-Pass
- Equilibrium
Video Games:
- Bioshock
- Mass Effect
- Deus Ex
- Fallout
- Cyberpunk 2077
