Science fiction film is a film genre that uses speculative, science-based depictions of imaginary phenomena such as extra-terrestrial lifeforms, alien worlds, and time travel, often along with technological elements such as futuristic spacecraft, robots, or other technologies. Science fiction films have... [more]

Science fiction film is a film genre that uses speculative, science-based depictions of imaginary phenomena such as extra-terrestrial lifeforms, alien worlds, and time travel, often along with technological elements such as futuristic spacecraft, robots, or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to provide social commentary on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues, such as the human condition. In many cases, tropes derived from written science fiction may be used by filmmakers ignorant of or at best indifferent to the standards of scientific plausibility and plot logic to which written science fiction is traditionally held. The genre has existed since the early years of silent cinema, when Georges Melies' A Trip to the Moon (1902) amazed audiences with its trick photography effects. The next major example in the genre was the 1927 film Metropolis. From the 1930s to the 1950s, the genre consisted mainly of low-budget B-movies. After Stanley Kubrick's 1968 landmark 2001: A Space Odyssey, the science fiction film genre was taken more seriously. In the late 1970s, big-budget science fiction films filled with special effects became popular with audiences. The hugely influential Star Wars trilogy, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien appeared, paving the way for the blockbuster hits of subsequent decades, such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), Independence Day (1996), Men in Black (1997), the Matrix trilogy (1999-2003) and WALL-E (2008). Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap. The boundaries of the fantasy literary genre are not well-defined, and the same is therefore true for the film genre as well. Categorizing a movie as fantasy may thus require an examination of the themes, narrative approach and other structural elements of the film. For example, much about the Star Wars saga suggests fantasy, yet it has the feel of science fiction, whereas much about Time Bandits (1981) suggests science fiction, yet it has the feel of fantasy. Some film critics borrow the literary term Science Fantasy to describe such hybrids of the two genres. [show less]