John Scalzi on Scifi

John Scalzi on Scifi

The Exit Interview

by John Scalzi on May 9 2012
The Exit Interview
Well, folks, this is a Very Special Column, and to make that point, I am going to interview myself about it. So, everyone, meet Interviewer Me!

Hello, everyone.
Let's get started, shall we?

Right then. To cut right to the chase: Rumor has it this is your last science fiction film column for Filmcritic.com. Is this true?
Indeed it is. I started this column on May 8, 2008, and am stopping today, May 9, 2012. That's as close to symmetry as you get in this business.

Why are you stopping?
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John Scalzi on Scifi

9 Scifi Films You Should See That You (Probably) Haven't

by John Scalzi on May 2 2012
9 Scifi Films You Should See That You (Probably) Haven't
One of the interesting things about science fiction is that as genre, some of its most artistically and culturally significant films are also some of its most financially successful -- 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Alien, and Terminator 2 are just a few examples of this.

Still, there are a number of truly interesting science fiction films that have slipped under the radar of the average science fiction filmgoer, often because they are old, or are foreign, or were film equivalents of the Velvet Underground, i.e., appreciated by few, but those few went off to become filmmakers of their own.

With that in mind, here's a list of 9 science fiction films you should see that you (probably) haven't. Most of these are available through home video of some manner or another. In chronological order:
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John Scalzi on Scifi

Prognosticating the Summer Scifi Films

by John Scalzi on Apr 25 2012
Prognosticating the Summer Scifi Films
The Summer Movie Season used to begin with Memorial Day weekend, but as more and more blockbusters began to crowd the schedule, the season's start date has moved further back. This year, every weekend in May is jam-packed with summer films getting a head start. So now is a perfect time to look at the science fiction films on the summer schedule and whether I suspect they will be hits or misses.
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John Scalzi on Scifi

Awful Scifi Films, Smart "Battleship" Moves, Evil Jedi: To the Mailbag!

by John Scalzi on Apr 18 2012
Awful Scifi Films, Smart "Battleship" Moves, Evil Jedi: To the Mailbag!
This week I am going to answer reader questions AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME (unless you're my editor. In which case: Hi. Please don't fire me).

To the mailbag!

First question:

"Last week you listed the science fiction movies you'd show aliens to avoid us being annihilated. Which ones would you show if you wanted us all to die?"

What a horrible and morbid question. And, of course, I immediately thought of several. In no particular order:
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John Scalzi on Scifi

5 Scifi Films to Help Us Avoid Alien Annihilation

by John Scalzi on Apr 11 2012
5 Scifi Films to Help Us Avoid Alien Annihilation
Quick! Aliens have landed and are threatening to blow up the Earth (you know, as they do) unless you can show them five science fiction films that prove humanity is worth saving! Which ones do you show them?

While you are all thinking about this deeply important question, here are the five films I would choose and why.
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John Scalzi on Scifi

Evil ... or the Victim of Framing? Bad Guys in Science Fiction Film

by John Scalzi on Apr 4 2012
Evil ... or the Victim of Framing? Bad Guys in Science Fiction Film
For no particular reason, lately I've been thinking about that Internet picture of a depressed Star Wars stormtrooper, sitting on a hotel room bed, with the caption "I had friends on that Death Star." It's funny because Imperial Stormtroopers are meant to be remorseless and literally faceless bastards, and yet who can deny that even stormtroopers have friends? Heck, in the first Star Wars film, while Obi-Wan Kenobi is fiddling with the tractor beam, you can hear two stormtroopers talking about the latest models of speeders. These are normal dudes.

In the service of evil, yes, granted -- or should we grant that? It's well known that the Republic before the Empire was corrupt and stagnating, and that while the Jedi positioned themselves as the defenders of justice, the average citizen of the Republic could have just as easily seen them as an autocratic institution, answerable to no one, enforcing merely its own power. In which case the Emperor could be seen as a reformer: tough but fair, someone who streamlined the government and got things done. Is that evil? Really?

This got me thinking of the various adversaries of science fiction films, and about the fact that while we take it for granted that they are evil, a little bit of thought suggests that in at least some cases, you can make the argument they're not evil so much as the victim of the filmmaker's framing and our own biases. To make that point, let me offer three other famous science fiction film antagonists, and argue why from their point of view, they're the hero of the situation (or at least, the victim).
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John Scalzi on Scifi

5 Lessons from the Hit "Hunger Games" and the Flop "John Carter"

by John Scalzi on Mar 28 2012
5 Lessons from the Hit "Hunger Games" and the Flop "John Carter"
Hey, folks: sick of me talking about John Carter and The Hunger Games? Too bad! I'm going to talk about them again this week!

Why? Because the two of them are in fact perfect bookends of science fiction film success: On the one hand, you've got The Hunger Games, which racked up $150+ million in its opening weekend, becoming the biggest non-sequel film opening ever -- it's on track to earn its studio, Lionsgate, $300 million in profit when all is said and done. On the other hand you've got John Carter, which cost $250 million to make and has performed poorly enough that its studio, Disney, has already declared that it expects it will take a $200 million writedown on the film. That makes it officially one of the biggest flops in movie history.

Is there anything we can learn from the divergent paths of these two films? Here are a few things that occurred to me.
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John Scalzi on Scifi

How YA like "The Hunger Games" Came to Rule Fantasy and Scifi Films

by John Scalzi on Mar 21 2012
How YA like "The Hunger Games" Came to Rule Fantasy and Scifi Films
Hunger Games mania is upon us: The first of a planned four-film series based on Suzanne Collins's science fiction trilogy (because now it's apparently required that the final book of any series must be broken into two movie) hits theaters on Friday. To say the box-office expectations are huge is underselling the statement: Film industry observers expect it to have an opening weekend box office in the neighborhood of $100 million (and that's just domestic) and to be one of the biggest films of the year.

The film does something else as well: It solidifies young adult science fiction and fantasy as one of the most successful genres of literature for adaptation into blockbuster films. The Hunger Games will be following on the massive success of the Twilight series (four films, $1 billion in domestic box office) and Harry Potter series (eight films, $2.3 billion), and will be followed by others, including Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments, with Lily Collins (Mirror Mirror) set to star, as well as Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series, optioned and on deck.

What is it about young adult science fiction and fantasy that makes it so delicious to Hollywood -- and to moviegoers? Well ...
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John Scalzi on Scifi

And Now for Some Real Science Fiction ... Studio Math!

by John Scalzi on Mar 14 2012
And Now for Some Real Science Fiction ... Studio Math!
Today's question, about last week's unfortunately-not-big science fiction film:

I read that in order for John Carter to turn a profit, it would have to make something like $600 million at the box office. But the movie only cost $250 million to make. Why does it have to take in so much more to make money?
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John Scalzi on Scifi

"John Carter" and the Curse of Mars

by John Scalzi on Mar 7 2012
"John Carter" and the Curse of Mars
The Disney Martian adventure John Carter opens this weekend, and those who go see it will be mystically transported, along with the titular hero of the film, to a version of Mars called Barsoom. Disney is hoping quite a lot of explorers will take the trip, because with a budget estimated at $250 million, it's going to need to be a monster just to break even.

If John Carter does become successful, not only will a lot of Disney executives breathe a heavy sigh of relief, but the film will have done something else: break an evil Martian curse in which films that take place on the fourth rock from the sun fail, often miserably, to make money at the box office. Or to put it another way: Red planet films usually stay in the red.

Examples, you say?
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John Scalzi on Scifi

Oscars Wrap-Up, Plus More on China

by John Scalzi on Feb 29 2012
Oscars Wrap-Up, Plus More on China
Because I am caring and responsive and also because it's easy when I'm on a deadline, I go through reader e-mail to answer questions. This week, the questions hearken back to two previous columns, one on the Oscars (which were awarded on Sunday, in case you live under a rock) and the other on China. Oscars first:

Any thoughts on the Oscars results this year?

Well, depending on whether you consider Hugo and Midnight in Paris to be science fictional and/or fantasy films, this was either a really good year or a really bad year for the genre.
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John Scalzi on Scifi

China Can Change the Future of Science Fiction Film

by John Scalzi on Feb 22 2012
China Can Change the Future of Science Fiction Film
In my fantasy world, where the unicorns run free and my cats are as witty as Oscar Wilde, films get made for inherently artistic reasons -- some smart, engaged, and cultured film executive looks at a story, says, "My God, people need to see this in film form! Damn the expense!" and then goes on to make a visionary work of art, untrammeled by the dictates of the marketplace. It's a fine fantasy world. Just ask my robot butler.

Out here in the real world, however, films get made for slightly different reasons -- but reasons that are in their way no less fantastical than in the scenario I mentioned above. For example, recent news suggests that movie studios are about to get even more interested in large-scale science fiction and fantasy films than they already are. Why? Because they love science fiction and fantasy films more than any other sort? Well, no: It's because of China.
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John Scalzi on Scifi

Will We Ever Be Rid of "Star Wars"?

by John Scalzi on Feb 15 2012
Will We Ever Be Rid of "Star Wars"?
A letter arrived in e-mail the other day:

The 3D edition of The Phantom Menace made $23 million over the weekend, proving that George Lucas will never be punished for his crimes. Will we ever be rid of Star Wars? Or in another 10 years will we have to endure the re-release of the Star Wars films in Smell-O-Vision?

Well, to address the first part, $23 million was only the studio estimate. The real amount was $22.4 million. See? That makes it all better.

To address the second part, no, in this lifetime you will never be rid of Star Wars, and you should just learn to accept that fact.
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John Scalzi on Scifi

Lessons from the Success of "Chronicle"

by John Scalzi on Feb 8 2012
Lessons from the Success of "Chronicle"
Chronicle, the science fiction film about teenagers getting superpowers somewhat ahead of the morality required to wield them responsibly, brought in $22 million over the Super Bowl weekend. This was good enough for a first-place finish at the box office, and the fourth-best Super Bowl weekend result ever. It did much better than anyone expected.

What can we learn from the film's surprising success?
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John Scalzi on Scifi

Insomniac Science Fiction

by John Scalzi on Feb 1 2012
Insomniac Science Fiction
My house has three cats, and every morning between 2 and 4 a.m., at least one of them needs to go outside. My wife, who could sleep through an alien invasion, they do not bother. No, they come to me, doing that cat thing of whacking you in the face until you wake up, groggily go down the stairs, and let them out (yes, I put them out before I go to bed. They get back in. Somehow). Sometimes I stagger back upstairs and then immediately fall back asleep. But sometimes I don't, and then I'm stuck being awake, with a low-revving brain, for a few hours at least.

This has given me an appreciation for films that are watchable in my insomniac state -- some bad, some quite good, but all for various reasons that one may, if one chooses, sort of stare at glassily for an undetermined period of time, waiting for sleep to come again. As it happens, quite a few of these films are science fiction films. Here are some of my favorites to view, half-awake, between 2 a.m. and dawn.
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John Scalzi on Scifi

Academy Award Nominations 2012: Not Science Fiction's Best Year

by John Scalzi on Jan 25 2012
Academy Award Nominations 2012: Not Science Fiction's Best Year
The Academy Award nominations are out, and although this column appears on Wednesday, I'm banging it out on Tuesday morning. So what you're about to get right now are my immediate thoughts on the Oscar nods, and how they relate to science fiction (and also fantasy). Ready? Here we go:
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John Scalzi on Scifi

A Science Fiction Film Elementary Education

by John Scalzi on Jan 18 2012
A Science Fiction Film Elementary Education
Kids these days don't really need to be introduced to science fiction; it's a genre that's all around them in television, video games, books, and of course movies. But let's say, for the sake of argument, that you are both a parent and a bit of a geek, and you want to introduce your young kid -- who is between the ages of 6 and 10 years old -- to science fiction films in a more formal way. An Early Education Science Fiction Film class, as it were. Which science fiction films would work for such a thing?

I think you would have to set down some criteria for your curriculum. Here's some of the criteria I would use.
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John Scalzi on Scifi

2012 Fantasy Films and 3D Makeovers of Classics: It's Mailbag Time

by John Scalzi on Jan 11 2012
2012 Fantasy Films and 3D Makeovers of Classics: It's Mailbag Time
It's a slow week, science fiction film-wise, so let's go to the mailbag and answer a couple of ever-so-slightly off-topic questions, about fantasy films and 3D rereleases. First question:

You covered science fiction releases for 2012, but any thoughts on the upcoming fantasy films?
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John Scalzi on Scifi

Previewing 2012's Science Fiction Film Slate

by John Scalzi on Jan 4 2012
Previewing 2012's Science Fiction Film Slate
If you're reading this, you've made it into 2012 alive. Well done, you! So did I. To celebrate our continued existence on this dizzy planet, let's take an early look at some of the science fiction films scheduled for the year, and my initial gut reaction (i.e., not based on anything but trailers, descriptions, and cast lists) to each.
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John Scalzi on Scifi

Final Thoughts on 2011 Movies, Scifi and Otherwise

by John Scalzi on Dec 28 2011
Final Thoughts on 2011 Movies, Scifi and Otherwise
This will be the last column of the year! You'll have to wait until next year for the next one! Fortunately, "next year" is just a few days away, so there's no reason to panic. But as this is the last column of this year, allow me to make a few observations about film and the film industry, some only tangentially related to science fiction in particular but useful nonetheless for context.

To begin: 2011 will not go down in history as a particularly stellar year for the film industry. The total gross of the domestic market will click in at about $10 billion, which is below last year, meaning that the number of tickets sold (accounting for the small bit of inflation from last year's ticket prices) is significantly down -- around 5%. This despite the fact that about 50 more movies made it to theaters this year. It's also the first year since 2007 that no film cracked the $400 million box office barrier; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 came close at $381 million (which, you know, is still good), but it's indicative of a year where no monster movie like The Dark Knight or Avatar has captured the public and offered a financial or psychological "halo effect" to the general box office.

Is this cause for panic in the sunny climes of Los Angeles? Not necessarily.
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