Table Of ContentAmerican Science Fiction Film
and Television
American Science Fiction Film
and Television
Lincoln Geraghty
Oxford • New York
First published in 2009 by
Berg
Editorial offi ces:
1st Floor, Angel Court, 81 St Clements Street, Oxford, OX4 1AW, UK
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
© Lincoln Geraghty 2009
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form
or by any means without the written permission of Berg.
Berg is the imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 184520 795 3 (Cloth)
ISBN 978 184520 796 0 (Paper)
Typeset by Apex CoVantage
Printed in the UK by the MPG Books Group
www.bergpublishers.com
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: American Science Fiction Culture 1
1 Confl ict and Consensus: The Cold War and the Space Race 19
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) 21
The Twilight Zone (1959 –1964) 29
2 P ushing the Frontiers of Reality: Science Fiction
and the Counterculture 35
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 36
Star Trek (1966 –1969) 44
3 U nsettling Visions of America’s Future Present:
Dystopian Science Fiction 51
Soylent Green (1973) 54
The Six Million Dollar Man (1974 –1978) 63
4 Hopes and Fears: Aliens, Cyborgs and the Science Fiction Blockbuster 69
*batteries not included (1987) 72
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994) 79
5 Beyond Truth and Reason: Politics and Identity in Science Fiction 85
The Matrix (1999) 93
The X-Files (1993–2002) 98
6 American Science Fiction Post-9/11 103
Transformers (2007) 112
Battlestar Galactica (2003–2009) 118
Epilogue: The Repeated Pleasures of Science Fiction Film and Television 123
Bibliography 127
Film and Videography 141
Index 149
– v –
Acknowledgements
This book is the result of years spent in the cinema and in front of the television
watching science fi ction. From an early age I was captivated by the genre, indoctri-
nated by George Lucas’s Star Wars, and inspired by Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek.
Despite my fi rst cinema memory, being carried out of a packed cinema in Calgary
by my dad after watching only the fi rst ten minutes of E.T. and crying my eyes out
(yes, I found that loveable extraterrestrial scary!), I have been fascinated by science
fi ction on screen. The genre continues to attract audiences, its place in the American
cultural psyche assured by wondrous and terrifying visions of the future, technology
and the alien.
For that signifi cant and lasting introduction to science fi ction I thank my father
(not forgetting all those Star Wars toys both he and my mum bought me) as without
it I would not have been so captivated and intrigued to fi nd out what makes science
fi ction so affective and infl uential. This book has come a long way from my fi rst
proposal, and there have been several people who have helped in its development.
I would like to thank my editor, Tristan Palmer, who saw potential in my idea and
had great patience when I kept pushing back the deadline. I must also thank Van Nor-
ris and John Caro, my valued friends and colleagues at the University of Portsmouth,
with whom I spent many hours discussing the classics and moaning at the rubbish
that continues to fi ll our cinema and television schedules. As ever, I thank my part-
ner, Rebecca Janicker, who put up with me watching endless tapes and DVDs and
tapping away at the keyboard late into the night for months.
– vii –
Introduction
American Science Fiction Culture
This book stands as a critical history of late twentieth-century American science
fi ction fi lm and television, offering a discussion of the cultural, industrial, political
and social concerns of the popular genre on screen. While I cannot claim that it is
exhaustive and inclusive of every fi lm and TV series made in America from 1950
onwards, I would say that this work is an attempt to map themes and trends that have
been common to both forms of mediated science fi ction. It clearly indicates how the
genre has infl uenced and been affected by the culture in which it is produced. This
introduction is split into six sections: the fi rst outlines notions of genre and how sci-
ence fi ction has been defi ned historically; the subsequent four sections then discuss
in detail key historical events and science fi ction texts that have had a major impact
on the development of the genre and the fi lms and television series we continue to
watch today; the fi nal section provides a breakdown of the texts and history dis-
cussed in each chapter, also offering an overview of the trends and themes important
to a critical understanding of the science fi ction genre in America.
Genre and Science Fiction
There have been numerous works that offer their own defi nitions of the genre, in
both literary and visual form, and I do not wish to offer my own single defi nition
here. However, it is important to consider how the genre has been talked about and
critiqued at various times throughout its long history—indeed, being able to decide
how far back we can trace the history of science fi ction as a genre is a debate all
unto itself. Generic terms are often ascribed to groups or cycles of texts such as fi lms
long after they have been made. Therefore we must be aware how genres are in a
constant state of fl ux as the mechanisms through which media are produced, con-
sumed and evaluated are themselves always changing. As will be discussed further
in this introduction, Georges Méliès’s silent classic, Voyage dans La Lune, is cited
as a canonical science fi ction fi lm that represents one of the earliest examples of the
genre. However, the term science fi ction had not been invented in 1902, when the
fi lm was made. When Hugo Gernsback eventually coined the phrase in America dur-
ing the 1920s, it was to promote the particular type of fi ction that he published in the
– 1 –
2 • American Science Fiction Film and Television
pulp magazine Amazing Stories, fi ction that was genuinely opposed to the kinds of
fantasy represented by Méliès’s fi lm work. So, while genres are fl uid and can change
over time, they are also historically specifi c since particular generic labels, canons
and terminology give us insight into what cultural and industrial factors contributed
to their construction in the fi rst place: ‘Genres, of course, are subject to history; that
is to say that they are a product of particular societies at particular times’ (Lacey
2000: 170).
Steve Neale, in his comprehensive and seminal work, Genre and Hollywood
(2000), devotes only a few pages to the history of the science fi ction genre—
particularly, how attempts to defi ne and critique particular fi lm texts have helped to
construct a canon of important examples of the genre and the major generic templates
that have come to defi ne it. Four of the most signifi cant and culturally relevant tem-
plates in American science fi ction are discussed here. Crucially, Neale (2000: 28)
argues, as I have already summarised, ‘that genre as a term has been used in different
ways in different fi elds, and that many of its uses have been governed by the history
of the term in these fi elds—and by the cultural factors at play within them—rather
than by logic or conceptual consistency’. Therefore, it is not inconceivable that in
talking about the science fi ction genre one might easily compare and contrast Méliès
with George Lucas, Metropolis (1926) with Aeon Flux (2005), or indeed a fi lm such
as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) with the television series Star Trek (1966 –1969). In
fact, the main aim of this book is to analyse both fi lm and television science fi ction
together, albeit in sections and boxed text, acknowledging that they differ in how they
originated and continue to be made but also demonstrating how they are similar in the
ways they have responded to and refl ect important historical and political events in
American life, and in the ways they have been consumed by audiences and fans.
That last point is crucial, I think, in trying to understand the particular focus of this
book on America and the types of science fi ction it produces for fi lm and television.
For sure, as the major media producer in the world, home to Hollywood and the larg-
est network and cable TV companies, America dominates the genre and the kinds of
science fi ction that are made. However, as Scott Bukatman (1999: 265) has argued,
one can see how science fi ction is considered a ‘deeply American genre’ because of
the constant attention paid to themes of science, technology, nature run amok, alien
invasion, conspiracy, disaster and space exploration that correlate with particular
moments in American history such as the development of nuclear weapons, the Cold
War with the Soviet Union, the Space Race, the political and social unrest caused by
Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, the growth of the blockbuster and changes to
the Hollywood fi lm industry and the complete integration of computer technology in
the network society. Furthermore, one can trace the anxieties built up around these
events in late twentieth- and twenty-fi rst-century America to their roots in literature,
fi lm and radio in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
On a purely industrial level, genres historically were used by producers to create
and maintain loyal audiences. Hollywood made genre fi lms to help establish regular
