Review of Story of Science Fiction (2018)
Seen in 2022.
James Cameron interviews studio guests like George Lucas about their views on US science fiction film and television, with occasional nods to literature and other countries. Experts and less popular actors chime in alone on the history and interpretation of the genre.
30% of this is mutual congratulation by celebrities. The rest was not new to me. It sometimes verges on promotion for barely house-broken works like the tail end of the 2002–2017 Resident Evil adaptations, but the emphasis is on more historically significant, typically lower-budget work. According to IMDb editors, the series includes clips from the following:
- “The Astronomer’s Dream” (1898).
- “A Trip to Mars” (1910).
- Frankenstein (1910), Frankenstein (1931), Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) and Victor Frankenstein (2015).
- Woman in the Moon (1929).
- King Kong (1933).
- Loss of Feeling (1935).
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949).
- Destination Moon (1950).
- A Christmas Carol (1951).
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
- The Thing from Another World (1951).
- Robot Monster (1953), as a commercial success.
- The War of the Worlds (1953) and War of the Worlds (2005) apropos of The War of the Worlds (1897).
- Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).
- Godzilla (1954) and Godzilla (2014).
- Forbidden Planet (1956).
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).
- The Searchers (1956).
- Beginning of the End (1957).
- The Giant Claw (1957).
- Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958).
- I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958).
- The Blob (1958).
- The Hidden Fortress (1958).
- The Giant Gila Monster (1959).
- The Killer Shrews (1959).
- The Twilight Zone (1959).
- The Time Machine (1960) and The Time Machine (2002) apropos of The Time Machine (1895).
- Sanjuro (1962).
- Doctor Who (1963).
- The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971) and I Am Legend (2007).
- Fail-Safe (1964).
- Lost in Space (1965).
- Star Trek (1966), The Next Generation (specifically “The Measure of a Man”) and Star Trek (2009).
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
- Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Day of the Dead (1985) as well as Zombi 2 (1979) and Dawn of the Dead (2004).
- Planet of the Apes (1968) and its first few sequels, as well as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017).
- All Monsters Attack (1969).
- Hercules in New York (1970) as a joke.
- A Clockwork Orange (1971).
- Silent Running (1972).
- Soylent Green (1973).
- Westworld (1973) and Westworld (2016).
- Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975).
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
- Star Wars (1977), Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016).
- Battlestar Galactica (1978).
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).
- Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), Alien: Resurrection (1997). Also Prometheus (2012).
- Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979).
- Mad Max (1979), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) but rather pointedly not the second sequel.
- The Black Hole (1979).
- The Shining (1980).
- Altered States (1980).
- Outland (1981).
- Blade Runner (1982).
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).
- Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982).
- Poltergeist (1982).
- The Thing (1982).
- 1984 (1984) to illustrate Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).
- Dune (1984).
- Firestarter (1984).
- The Brother from Another Planet (1984).
- The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator Salvation (2009), Terminator Genisys (2015).
- Back to the Future (1985) and Back to the Future Part II (1989).
- Cocoon (1985).
- The Goonies (1985).
- Short Circuit (1986).
- SpaceCamp (1986).
- Stand by Me (1986).
- The Fly (1986).
- Robocop (1987).
- Alien Nation (1988).
- They Live (1988).
- Groundhog Day (1993).
- Jurassic Park (1993).
- Twelve Monkeys (1995).
- Independence Day (1996).
- Contact (1997).
- Starship Troopers (1997).
- The Fifth Element (1997).
- Dark City (1998).
- Armageddon (1998).
- The Matrix (1999).
- 28 Days Later... (2002).
- Minority Report (2002).
- Resident Evil (2002) and its five sequels.
- Solaris (2002).
- I, Robot (2004), unfortunately in reference to Asimov’s worldbuilding.
- Primer (2004).
- Shaun of the Dead (2004).
- The Day After Tomorrow (2004).
- V for Vendetta (2005).
- A Sound of Thunder (2005).
- A Scanner Darkly (2006).
- Children of Men (2006).
- The Host (2006).
- Next (2007).
- The Dark Knight (2008) with reference to The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
- WALL·E (2008).
- Avatar (2009).
- District 9 (2009).
- Zombieland (2009).
- Inception (2010).
- The Book of Eli (2010).
- The Walking Dead (2010).
- The Hunger Games (2012) and the last two of its sequels.
- Looper (2012).
- Gravity (2013).
- Her (2013).
- Pacific Rim (2013).
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).
- Interstellar (2014).
- Predestination (2014) to illustrate “‘—All You Zombies—’” (1959).
- Childhood’s End (2015), based on Childhood’s End (1953).
- The Man in the High Castle (2015).
- The Martian (2015).
- Arrival (2016).
- Stranger Things (2016).
- The Handmaid’s Tale (2017).
The most interesting thing about Story of Science Fiction I think is the interview between Lucas and Cameron in the second episode, where Cameron uncritically—and politely—accepts Lucas’s anti-intellectualism. That sort of attitude, even among Hollywood’s greatest luminaries of the genre, is depressing, but also has enormous explanatory value. They celebrate Primer, but they go back to worldbuilding for obsolete limitations.