It was only last December 2015 when the release of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens shook the entire science fiction (sci-fi) universe with waves of space opera nostalgia. Fans approved not only of the casting choice for the portrayals of Rey, Finn, and Kylo Ren, but also of the comeback of Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo, all played by their original—now much older—actors.
While majority of the science fiction community largely praised the film, the relative minority of fans voiced out their concern about elements the film shares with the first Star Wars installment, A New Hope. Some have called Episode VII a “rip-off,” pertaining to how its plotline comparably follows that of A New Hope’s.
The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams responds to this in a podcast with The Hollywood Reporter, saying, “What was important to me was introducing a brand new chapter, brand new characters, using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new.” Given this, while the sci-fi fandom is divided when it comes to where sci-fi is heading, it is clear that both the genre and its definition has been evolving—and this time, technology is not its only catalyst.
Episode IV: A new trope
Science fiction’s new orientation compels us to travel back in time to the Big Bang of the genre. Lester del Rey, founder of science fiction publication Del Rey Books, comments on this. “Even the devoted aficionado—or fan—has a hard time trying to explain what science fiction is,” he writes in The World of Science Fiction. Coming from a sci-fi author, this seems to put the definition of science fiction at an arbitrary perspective.
While this may seem true from a certain angle, Ronald Cruz, who has taught various electives on sci-fi in the Loyola Schools, has his own working definition. Cruz, the undergraduate programs coordinator of the Biology Department, says that “sci-fi is defined by the novum—the new, the novel in the science fiction world.” This is seen in how sci-fi titles don’t miss out on involving products of new technology in their narratives.
But the genre has restrictions as well. “As soon as you see something magical [in a film or a novel], it doesn’t pretend to be scientific,” notes Cruz. According to him, other branches of speculative fiction are free to play around with the laws of physics, but not science fiction. Carlo Rivera IV, an instructor of the English Department, says, “Carl Sagan, the great scientist and science writer, talked about how science fiction and science are mutually supportive.”
Episode VII, itself a likely specimen to consider when talking about science fiction, begins with a lone space teen from a desert planet, who later realizes her fate as a Jedi to overthrow a menacing imperial force. Cruz believes that calling Episode VII a “rip-off” is unfounded. “It’s very myopic—very shortsighted. [Critics] don’t understand that it’s a trope,” opines Cruz. “It’s a template that tons of books and movies have followed for centuries.”
This classic plot in sci-fi dates back to Greek mythology, where people of humble origins are thrust into adventures leading to either triumph or tragedy. What we’re seeing here is an evocation of a sense of nostalgia for the classic mythological template that ancient playwrights have left in our hands—the same ones we have grown to love.
The jump into light speed
Greek mythology isn’t the only framework behind sci-fi. Cruz believes sci-fi to have followed the technological trend, leading us to one of the key constructs in technological advancement: Alvin Toffler’s Wave Theory, which characterizes technology into the agricultural, industrial, and digital “waves.” For Cruz, the trend seems to make complete sense.
The first wave that brought about the sedentary lifestyle inspired works of sci-fi to focus on themes of adventure such as those exemplified by Jules Verne’s novels. “Sci-fi was all about voyages,” says Cruz. “People were moving around and colonizing.”
The second wave, with the establishment of industrialization, ushered sci-fi into Victorian-era type classics such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Cruz points out, “[This period] was all about very Promethean desires to discover life, something new, and play god.”
All of these lead up to the third wave, where computers, heightened intelligence, and bioengineering have forged what science fiction is now. Films like Transcendence (2014), Lucy (2014), and Interstellar (2014) have coalesced what has become a fusion of “quasi-religious beliefs” that, according to Cruz, have taken root in a lot of societies today.
Sci-fi’s development can be traced to scientific truths of the modern world, too. Taking time-relevant concepts is a way for sci-fi to keep evolving without straying from its limits. Case in point, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, a sci-fi novel about cloning, was written a year after Scotland’s first successful animal clone died in 2003.
This trend utilizes a variety of sciences being explored today. For instance, experiments of gene manipulation in animals were depicted in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011). Jurassic World (2015), on the other hand, shows capitalism’s interference in the field of bioengineering as seen in how scientific advances were used to generate profit.
Furthermore, climate change is an issue that has sparked discussion for the past years and has been a trend in sci-fi movies like 2012 (2009) and The 5th Wave (2016). Sci-fi evolves further and gains more relevance to society with each venture into the issues surrounding scientific progress.
A multicultural voyage
Scientific issues aren’t the only ingredients behind the genre’s evolution—diversity plays a part as well, as cases of minority misrepresentation still subsist in mainstream media. For example, a Filipino character from Starship Troopers (1997) and an Asian-American role from The Martian (2015) were given to white actors. It’s evident that white actors have been nudged to take roles meant for people of color.
While white communities dominate the genre’s mainstream, different cultures will always take part in the world of sci-fi. Even Filipinos have their share of laudable works that eventually served to kindle the emergence of sci-fi in the Philippines. These include Nemesio Caravana’s Frankenstein-like Ang Puso ni Matilde and Mateo Cruz Cornelio’s spine-chilling Doktor Satan, which narrates a doctor’s attempt to manufacture a drug for immortality.
Although it may seem like sci-fi takes root in Western literature, JK Anicoche, director of Tanghalang Ateneo’s Robot Unibersal ni Rossum (R.U.R.)—an adaptation of Rossum’s Universal Robots, a 1920 Czech play that made popular the idea of robots— challenges this notion by saying that audiences tend to romanticize the archetypal “hero’s journey” as a Western construct.
Anicoche takes it that this framework appeals to audiences because the mythical model is something innate—completely human and relatable. “[The template] became a classical Hollywood structure, but it’s embedded in our DNA. It’s not Western,” he stresses.
Sci-fi has truly gone a long way from its roots. Cruz ruminates that this may be because audiences of cinema have never lost the desire to escape. “A lot of people can argue that it’s even more true now, especially since the world is experiencing overpopulation, pollution, climate change, and diversity laws,” he says.
“It all starts with ‘what if?’” says Rivera. “In the end, you learn that by asking questions that take you outside the familiar world, the world [becomes] more sensible, because you can see it from the outside,” he says. Sci-fi molds our perception of what the world can come to, so in our own miniature wormholes, we may one day achieve the possibilities that were once only possible in a galaxy far, far away.
