• Editorial: Best Science Fiction Movies (Part I)  
• Craft: Transhumanist Issue 
• Update on the West Side Salon for Philosophy and the Future  
• WFS and WFSF Annual Conferences  
• The Future Evolution of the Human Mind - and Beyond 
• Archive: Futurodyssey and Wisdom Page Updates   

Over the last year I have watched a number of new science fiction movies, to name but a few, Prometheus, Men in Black 3, The Avengers, Oblivion, Looper, Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Cloud Atlas. Ever since I was a child, held enthralled and mesmerized by the original versions of The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and Journey to the Center of the Earth, I have been a science fiction movie addict, watching as many of them as I could, often against my better judgment regarding whether I expected anything approaching a quality movie experience. I go, pay the admission, always with some hope that what I will see will stimulate my senses, energize my imagination, and elevate my consciousness.

In general, though, I have found the majority of recent science fiction movies flat and disappointing. There are, of course, invariably great special effects to be found in all of them, but by and large, character development, plot, and philosophy are shallow and routine. In fact, it frequently seems to me that there is basically just one plot through many of these different movies: A powerful bad guy (or bad guys) with seemingly endless resources threatens our survival or well being, thus requiring the intervention of a flawed and reluctant good guy (or group of good guys) who, at the end of the movie, annihilates the bad guy and saves the world (or the universe).

Moreover, it often hits me that these movies could have been produced without the unique setting or ambience of science fiction; there is nothing especially science fiction about many of them. They could have been westerns. Science fiction merely adds spectacular special effects and more powerful villains. Indeed, one recent science fiction movie Cowboys and Aliens was a western, and it quite naturally "worked," at least as well as any of these kinds of movies work.

Provoked by such recent cinematic experiences, both good and bad, I decided to create a "Best Science Fiction Movies" list to accompany my list (on the CFC website) of "Best Science Fiction Novels."  (Having read some very good new novels over the last year, I will also be revising and updating my science fiction novels page in the coming month.) Fortunately, Wikipedia has what appears to be a complete list of all the science fiction movies that have been made since the beginning of the twentieth century, grouped by decade. I systematically went through this list to stimulate my recall on every science fiction movie that I had watched since I first started doing so as a kid. There are also numerous already existing lists of best science fiction movies on the Web, that have provided me with points of comparison for my own judgments. Though such lists of the best do show variability, it may not be that surprising that there is also a good deal of agreement among them.

Not all science fiction is about the future (for example, the Star Wars movies presumably deal with a galactic civilization that existed a long time ago), but science fiction movies, like science fiction novels, more often than not concern themselves with and graphically visualize possible human futures. And since we live in a visual and multi-media rich collective consciousness, science fiction movies, due to their immense popularity (roughly 95% of the highest money making movies are science fiction or fantasy), greatly influence (as well as reflect) popular future consciousness. It is important to get a good sense of what "pictures of the future" we are showing to ourselves and which ones, at least, have some depth, real imagination, and thought provoking qualities. As I have proposed, science fiction is the mythology of the future, and science fiction movies are the multi-media expression of this mythology.

My list of best science fiction movies will be up on the CFC website by next month. (The creation of such lists is subject to "temporal vacillation," where day to day one's judgments seem to change, but the list is reaching some relatively stable and clear order, and I already have a draft covering approximately one hundred and twenty-five movies.) As with my list of best science fiction novels, I will have a set of criteria outlined for my ranking. 

In anticipation of this list, what I will note now is that of the movies that have been released over the last two years, I would include only one of them in the top twenty science fiction movies. That movie is Cloud Atlas (2012). I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend watching it at least twice, given the richness and complexity of the movie (it is almost three hours in length).

Cloud Atlas is an "original" artistic work, weaving seven different timelines and stories into a coherent whole. The viewer must follow these seven distinct stories, all of which unfold relatively simultaneously, with scenes and timelines switching back and forth, all brought vividly to life through top notch visualizations. The movie is not just a super-duper special effects extravaganza, however. It expands one's temporal consciousness, pulling in both history and the far future, and it does so in a way that helps the mind to keep it all together. Because of this historical element, some viewers may not even think of Cloud Atlas as science fiction. I have found, though, that enriching a futuristic vision with an historical dimension--connecting past and future--actually elevates and empowers the science fiction story.

The characters in Cloud Atlas are a diverse assortment of individuals, where interestingly, single actors or actresses play different roles across different time periods covered in the movie. The overall plot or theme of the movie is not "good guy destroys bad guy" (although some sub-plots contain this element), but rather the journey to enlightenment. Indeed, Cloud Atlas attempts to be philosophical in its message: there is a theory of reality--of the connectedness of past, present, and future--that is articulated throughout the movie. But when all is said and done, I simply very much enjoyed watching this movie. In the end, my mind felt stimulated and enlightened and my heart felt touched in viewing it.   

See you next month with my list.

Archives -

Futurodyssey and Wisdom Page  Updates

This last fall I began publishing two redesigned newsletters: Futurodyssey--the online publication for the Center for Future Consciousness--and the Wisdom Page Updates--the online publication for The Wisdom Page. There are Archives for both newsletters. You can view earlier issues of each newsletter by going to:   

 

That's it for this month: The Best Science Fiction Movies (Part I), an in depth analysis of transhumanism in Craft,  an update on the Philosophy and the Future Salon, announcements on the WFSF and WFS world conferences, and the course outline and schedule for my new fall course on "The Future Evolution of the Human Mind -- and Beyond."