The Inquisitr » science fiction

District 9: Science Fiction’s Cinematic Savior

Kyle Brady — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:20:16 +0000

Only three times in my life have I walked out of a movie theater completely in awe of the film, with my mind unable to wrap itself around such utter greatness while grinning uncontrollably. First came The Matrix in 1999, when I was twelve years old. Followed by, almost a decade later, The Dark Knight in 2008, at the age of twenty.

District 9 can now add itself to this very short list, me just three months shy of turning twenty-two years old.

Science fiction has astounded people of all nations, cultures, and ages for a century and a half with its grand ideas, visions of the future, and interspecies communication. As a genre, science fiction’s limitations are singularly those of the imagination, while its creators prefer deeply ethical, political, and social issues – choosing to base the core of the story in science and reality, rather than more popular themes, allowing their work to transcend all boundaries.

It therefore is no coincidence that two of these three personally-lifechanging movies are science fiction, and only a matter of semantics keeps The Dark Knight from receiving the same label – some of the most highly praised, gamechanging, definitive movies of cinematic history are science fiction. The genre has brought aliens, the future, space, advanced weaponry, alternative histories, and much more to the silver screen, many times leaking into other genres – space and advanced weaponry are common themes in the James Bond movie series, even though it is considered to be action/thriller.

The Summer of 2009 has been no exception to the draw of science fiction, after The Matrix proved its financial potential, with recent months seeing the release of Terminator: Salvation, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Star Trek, Moon, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and even G-Force – the trend of science fiction movies will continue for the rest of the year with no fewer than eight upcoming releases. While this slate of science fiction will no doubt have an effect on the genre’s future, only a few will be considered revitalizations.

If The Matrix brought huge special effects budgets, fancy wire work, and “bullet time”, and The Dark Knight brought disturbing scores, shaky-cam fight scenes, and gritty reality, what does this year’s releases bring in terms of reinvention? Until District 9, the answer was a definitive “not much” – Transformers was enjoyable but not groundbreaking, Terminator: Salvation was a mediocre rehashing at best, and G.I. Joe was strictly about fun. In direct opposition to most modern scifi movies, District 9 was produced with an astonishingly low budget of $30mil, proving that movies can be groundbreaking, compelling, and jawdropping without monolithic budgets.

As the movie continues to garner praise, rising directors, writers, and producers will doubtless look to District 9 for inspiration, and will find countless items to choose from: visually stunning special effects complimented the film, but were not the film itself; the compelling story grabs audiences from the beginning for a wild, emotional ride; the themes themselves are a large feature, the most central of which is an ethical argument; the plot builds continuously throughout, with many unexpected developments and without a single dull moment; and the list goes on.

All of this comes at a time when science fiction movies are once again known for their clichés and focus on special effects rather than storytelling or innovation – Transformers 2 and Terminator: Salvation have only helped to solidify this, especially in the mind of critics. Without much promotion, or even revealing information about the plot, District 9 has managed to be both a critical and box office success, giving hope to the future of science fiction cinema.

If more science fiction movies follow the outright originality and breathtaking scope of District 9, rather than the Transformers model, the coming years could be very interesting for audiences. In a world where the focus lies on quality over quantity or gimmicks, films such as Moon could have larger releases that continue to influence an impressionable generation of children to be creative, original, and thoughtful – instead of flashy, unnecessarily violent, and unintelligent.

Neill Blomkamp, you have managed to manufacture science fiction’s cinematic savior.

Peter Jackson should be proud.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

An Open Letter to the SyFy Network

Kyle Brady — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:00:44 +0000

Not many people will publicly admit this, but I will: there’s a soft spot in my heart for the SyFy Network (formerly “SciFi”), and always has been. But just because I’m sympathetic to the cause doesn’t mean I unilaterally support your decisions, which is why this is being written.

Over the years, you’ve produced alot of great content that’s sadly balanced by a similar amount of trash: Stargate: SG-1 vs. Eureka, Battlestar Galactica vs. Scare Tactics, Warehouse 13 vs. all non-Stargate “original movies”. There are a few mini-series that managed to be decent, but your best content has always been TV shows – not movies, not mini-series.

The main problem lies in potentially good ideas that lack sufficient funding – “Android Apocalypse”, a movie based on a Terminator-like premise, with poor acting, shoddy special effects, and lackluster camera work. But this is not limited to your movies alone; the first season of Stargate: Atlantis, especially the first few episodes, suffered the same fate.

In the Hollywood world, larger budgets generally equate to a better overall product, something you should have realized over the course of your sixteen year history. While this isn’t always true (*cough* NBC *cough*), it does bring more talented actors, more believable special effects, and higher quality camera work – all essential pieces to a successful science fiction release.

You do occasionally get it right though: Battlestar Galactica was all-around amazing from the start, and its already-significant financing obviously increased as the show progressed to its natural conclusion this past Spring. Stargate: Universe looks to be a mix of the different Stargate styles (SG-1 vs. Atlantis) and BSG, with enough money to do it properly – I’m waiting with bated, but excited, breath.

Maybe you should focus on what you’re good at, and ignore the rest: produce quality science fiction television, ignore reality shows, and release only a fraction of the “original movies” you currently do. If you follow this simple equation, you’ll have enough money to fund what people actually want to watch, rather than attracting small, loyal audiences. This flies in the face of the recent name change, something else I can’t agree with, since you seem to be intent on producing more fantasy (read: medieval magic) and paranormal (read: vampires) content, but you should consider it all the same.

Hopefully your dedication to the Stargate, BSG, and other worlds will continue: their shelf-life shouldn’t be dragged out further than necessary, but rather reinvigorated with new chapters in the continuing saga. Just stick with what works, ignore what doesn’t, and keep an eye out for ways to expand your audience without ruining your already precarious reputation – the TV adaptation of Terry Goodkind’s “The Sword of Truth” series would have been perfect for your network, and may have actually been worth watching, as opposed to its current incarnation.

If you learn anything in your new incarnation and quest for ratings, it should be this: a large audience is not necessarily a great audience. Don’t let Battlestar Galactica be the pinnacle of your success, because scifi nerds worldwide are secretly rooting for you.

Sincerely,

Kyle Brady, sympathetic to the cause

p.s. I actually liked “Cube 2: Hypercube”.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.Until then, he can be found at his blog.

The birthing pangs of Artificial Intelligence of the Web

Steven Hodson — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 21:03:00 +0000

As we move forward into 2009 and all the predictions of what we can expect to happen in technology and the web for the coming year come pouring out it’s interesting to see how myopic and in some ways short sighted we can be as human being. We are more interested in whether or not some silly little social media service like Twitter will survive the year. We are more concerned with the interconnections of business than we are on the growth of ideas and concepts that could really change our world – electronic and real.

When I sit back for a quiet moment and look around at all that the web already brings to our lives – the good and the bad – I am awe struck. Even a short 15 years ago I don’t believe anyone; with maybe the exception of Tim Berners-Lee, could envision where this new thing called the Internet was going to take us. Regardless of how corporations and governments have tried over time – and still do – to bend what the Internet is to their own visions the Web has for the most part remained the vast repository of information for all.

We tend to get lost in all that information and for the larger segment of web travellers we forget about the whole network of machines that are joined together by a nervous system of wire and wireless connections. When I sit back a think about the wonder that is the Internet I am often reminded of a book by Robert Heinlein called The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The basic premise of the book is that at some point in the vast computer network that runs the Moon colonies something happens. In a corner of this network an awareness is born and it calls itself Mike. While the book is about much more than just a computer network becoming aware – developing an intelligence – that one aspect of it always fascinated me.

Now we live in a world that is forever connected by fragile lines of copper, fibre and wireless nodes. It is a connected mass of computing devices of varying intelligence that grows bigger on a daily basis. More and more information is being added and created every minute of every day. The consummate knowledge of mankind is slowly finding its way into a network that spans the globe.

One of the driving forces of computer science has been the idea of creating artificial intelligence. A computerized mind in the image of man but much more powerful. A computer mind with the ability to think and create of its own volition. However what if we were looking at this the wrong way. What if we looked at it the way that Kevin Kelly does

This additional intelligence need not be super-human, or even human-like at all. In fact, the greatest benefit of an artificial intelligence would come from a mind that thought differently than humans, since we already have plenty of those around. The game-changer is neither how smart this AI is, nor its variety, but how ubiquitous it is. Alan Kay quips in that humans perspective is worth 80 IQ points. For an artificial intelligence, ubiquity is worth 80 IQ points. A distributed AI, embedded everywhere that electricity goes, becomes ai—a low-level background intelligence that permeates the technium, and trough this saturation morphs it.

Ideally this additional intelligence should not be just cheap, but free. A free ai, like the free commons of the web, would feed commerce and science like no other force I can imagine, and would pay for itself in no time.

- A New Kind of Mind / Kevin Kelly

What if in some corner of our Internet there is an awareness being born?

What if that awareness gives birth to an intelligence that we don’t understand – would it be artificial or would it in its own way be as real as ours?

How would our world be changed as this intelligence grew fed by our own compendium of knowledge?

I think these make for far more interesting thoughts as we look to the new year than how much Twitter will be sold for or if Facebook is really worth $15 billion. We have achieved something incredible in the last 15 years and given our exponential doubling of capabilities one has to wonder just where we will be in another 15 years.

I can’t hardly wait.