Ready for more Hollywood remakes of classic sci-fi movies?

No suprise here. I've heard Harlan Ellison say that science fiction on film tends to be about 40-50 years behind the state of the art in print.  There are a few exceptions of course.  Hollywood tried to do Dune in the late 70s with mixed results.  And the Matrix didn't feel like a SF tale from 1960.

I think we'll get better fare when we start to see some low cost digital film technologies make big waves.  Science Fiction tends to involve a lot of special effects and costly sets.  Big budget equals fewer creative risks in Hollywood.

And let's face it when Hollywood takes a creative risk with science fiction it often gets it wrong.  2001 being a notable exception.

Jose

www.memetherapy.blogspot.com

I think another part of the problem is endemic to our current Darwinian mindset.

That is, the central mentality that reigns at this time appears to be that the cream will rise to the top, ergo once there that cream stands perceived by many as the very best of the genre.

Ergo, the accept-no-substitutes mindset becomes prevalent with both the producers _and_ the public.

When Star Wars came out for example, although it also generated a bunch of knock-offs looking to capitalize on its success, that was largely only to the benefit of Star Wars.

Unfortunately Star Wars effectively wiped out all the Star-Wars'ish work in SF.

..in terms of the other works' ability to be perceived as quality based on their _own_ merit, that didn't happen, instead anything Star Wars'ish was perceived as secondary and derivative of Star Wars.  Which in turn bolsters the value and position of Star Wars as the seminal work of that form of SF.

Ergo back they go to Star Wars as the seminal medium for which to do Star Wars'ish stories.

Ditto Blade Runner (top of its SF sub-genre) where anything thematically or cinematically similar is charged with being derivative of, and therefore inferior to, Blade Runner.

ditto 2001, the top of its sub-genre.

et cetera.

My point being that our mindset is part of the problem. 

Instead of focussing on and celebrating the _nuances_ of SF, as we do in literature., with movies, the public mentality is that if it's close to Star Trek, then Star Trek should do it, Star Wars, then Star Wars ought do it, et cetera.

Anyone else doing a "Star Trek like" story is perceived as derivative or inferior (By the producers And by the public)

Not that it can't be done, Bablyon-5 for example, The Matrix as Jose said, are examples of where new seminal work emerges, but these examples are few, and they succeed not because there is no sentiment against them, but rather because they are able to surmount the sentiment against them.

And fighting uphill battles where you have to surmount anything, is not something Hollywood execs with millions of dollars on the line, gravitate towards engaging in.

I think that is a great part of why Hollywood keeps going back to established work that is now presented and perceived as the cream of that particular sub-genre crop (by the public), to handle stories that in the literary world, would alternatively be readily embraced as separate entities of equal if not potentially more value in _standing alone_.

I don't think it's *just* about a lack of ideas in Hollywood, or an unwillingness to take risks, though that's certainly a great part of it, but we bear some responsibility ourselves, the public's Darwinian mentality here is part of the problem too. imo.

On the plus side, I don't see the current mainstays lasting forever because at some point the Darwinian philosophy triggers the view that an item has become _too_ antiquated to anylonger be the top representative of its genre or sub-genre.

or The we-eat-our-own dynamic kicks in.

If this holds true, then at that time, Hollywood will be forced to take risks again.

Because it won't actually be a risk. 

imo, when the public signals its willingness to move on to find new seminal works (by their unwillingness to pay money to go see the current seminal works) the studios will be forced to look for new material, and to produce them.

In a perfect world, it should be the other way around, nominally the onus is on the artist to produce the work, and _then_ for the public to accept or dismiss it, creating an ever changing landscape of new quality works, but that doesn't seem to be the way things really work.

Maybe closer to the truth is that the public embraces _only_ what we like about Darwinism (particularly the argument that what now exists, is the cream of the crop, as this bodes well for that which now, and those that now, exist ..but embraced hyper-vocally by the public perhaps, as an means of obfuscating that as a species, we really don't like too much change, too quickly.

We need to find that happy medium though imo, because although I would submit that the public displays it doesn't really want to be overdosed on new material, we/they also don't want stagnation.

The Avante Guardian.
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Einstein's Hair^2 //Approved.