Tips for Making a Good—or at Least Moderately Interesting—Sci-Fi Movie, Courtesy of The Otter
February 21st, 2008
(The following tips are directed toward Danny Boyle’s 2007 film Sunshine, which, though described in some reviews as “the thinking person’s” sci-fi thriller, seemed to require significant lack of thought on the part of both filmmakers and viewers.)
1. If your characters are on a mission to re-ignite the sun, thus saving Earth, do not name their spaceship “Icarus.” This simply makes them look dumb. If the first Icarus mission fails, do not name the movie’s second spaceship “Icarus II.” This makes us think your characters are so moronic that they deserve to die.
2. Please allow your characters to have some distinguishing personality traits. Yes, we know that in a dire, life-threatening, potential-world-saving situation, people are under stress. But this usually does not eradicate their individual personalities to the point where you can only tell the men apart by whether or not they have beards. Think about “Firefly” and Serenity: no one has beards. Many characters have the same skin color. And you can tell them apart because they have personalities.
3. Include space cowboys.
4. If your characters have no personalities, but some of them have beards, do not make those characters shave their beards. Then we really can’t tell them apart.
5. If you are going to feature some character who has gone mad and lost his humanity and basically become Reaver-ish, you should include some explanation for why he’s been able to survive for six and a half years without skin. We’d be willing to accept that staring at the sun makes people supernatural if you actually pursued this as a theme, rather than using a mysteriously invulnerable character as a plot device to add conflict when oxygen-deprivation, possible failure, and certain death are not enough.
6. If you decide to use oxygen-deprivation as a major plot point, then do not then have your characters fight inside a huge bomb that appears to be pressurized. People do not usually need to breathe inside bombs.
7. If you’re going to have all your characters eat with chopsticks, couldn’t you just go ahead and make them space cowboys who swear in Chinese?
8. Give us some decent dialogue.
9. Did I mention space cowboys? Or at least space rhinos?
10. No cheesy Apollo 13 “hero music,” please.
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12 Comments Add your own
1. BoogaFace | February 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 am
space cowboys?
2. theottery | February 23rd, 2008 at 10:02 am
My list is as much an indication of my adoration for the TV show Firefly and the movie Serenity as it is an indictment of Sunshine. While the characters in Firefly/Serenity are not technically space cowboys (many are female, and they’re more like smugglers), it’s easier than saying “characters in a space-Western.” They swear in Chinese and eat with chopsticks, in case that wasn’t clear.
3. Jillian | February 23rd, 2008 at 10:21 am
Space Cowboys will always equal Cowboy Bebop to me. The Japanese did it first. But… it’s a good idea, and worth copying.
Wow. I can’t think of the last sci-fi movie that I really thought was excellent. Uh… sci-fi seems to end up in some cross genre with fantasy (my take on Star Wars) or horror (I did like 28 Days Later)… The Matrix tried but the last two movies were so wack, I haven’t stomached watching them again. And I’m not as fond of Firefly as you are… being an anime geek here to recognize some of the influences and a bit bitter about how leeching part of the creative staff from Angel and putting my favorite show in a slump left me bitter.
I know that some TV shows have done sci-fi well. Space:Above and Beyond hit all my geekish triggers. Doctor Who–obviously, the source of all my sci-fi development. And I definitely prefer reading ‘popular’ sci-fi over ‘popular’ fantasy novels.
Speaking of Doctor Who–you’ll have to let me know if you ever watch an old serial of the show. Something like ‘Genesis of the Daleks.’ I’d love to hear what you think of it.
4. theottery | February 24th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Jillian, you might have more patience with Sunshine than I did. It did, after all, have Cillian Murphy in it.
I have seen the old Doctor Who episodes in which Douglas Adams had a hand, but that’s it so far. I think they’re harder to get into if you didn’t grow up with them.
5. Jillian | February 24th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Fair enough and thanks for the update. I have no way to view them objectively–except that I know Old Who has never failed to appeal to me even now. This is coming from the girl that likes slower paced sci-fi novels though… so maybe I would have liked them regardless. *shrug*
I LOVE CILLIAN!!
Now I’m remembering why that title sounded familiar. *is torn*
6. theottery | February 24th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I should probably try some of the Old Whos that tie in to the Dalek arc more.
7. Jillian | February 25th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Genesis of the Daleks has Sarah Jane (and Harry, who I love) and it’d very closely tied to the New Who episode Dalek and the eventual Time War. It’s a long one, but would probably be my recommendation!
8. Mink | February 27th, 2008 at 10:57 am
So Otter, Cillian at least is recognizable, I take it? Beard or no beard? I wish he’d been in Firefly…
9. theottery | February 27th, 2008 at 11:40 am
No beard on Cillian, just a weird little ponytail-thing.
10. Jillian | February 29th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
*jumps in*
Could we say that “1. Having Cillian Murphy in your film.” Is one of the potential Good Moves when making a sci-fi film?? *curious*
11. theottery | February 29th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
An interesting hypothesis . . . Cillian Murphy is going to be in The Edge of Love, a film about Dylan Thomas that’s supposed to come out later this year, so let’s hope that “Having Cillian Murphy in your film” is a mark of goodness for a Welsh-Poet Movie. He’s also going to be in something called Peacock, which Entertainment Weekly tells me is a “psychological thriller.”
I don’t quite share the Cillian-obsession-levels of you gals, but I happened to think of you both when I was flipping through EW’s list of 30 Actresses under 30 and happened to see Murphy’s name.
Okay, okay, so he wasn’t one of the actresses in the list. Keira Knightley and Ellen Page were among the actresses, and they’re also in the above films, so Cillian got mentioned in their blurbs.
12. Jillian | March 1st, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Mostly, I love Cillian because he’s Jim in 28 Days Later which falls into the category of “Jillian could watch this movie at any time because she loves it madly and analyzes it to death and can still sip it in as if it was the first time.” Basically, I love the character of Jim.
Of course, once I learned the name Cillian (rhymes with Jillian)–then I tracked him in Batman Begins–cuz, well, he wears the glasses and does ‘far too skinny and creepy’ very well. Also, Red Eye surprised me as being an appropriately clever suspense/thriller that glorifies us poor souls that work in customer service. And the main girl was not stupid. She actually did all the things I shouted at her to do…
But… aside from those. I’m a bad Cillian Murphy fan. I think I’ll try to watch this one when I’m pet sitting in March. I’ve been promised ‘free movies’ as reward for getting to pretend that I have a puppy.
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