Uneven Analyses of SF Films

Uneven Analyses of Sf Films. Michael Berman and Rohit Dalvi, eds. Heroes, Monsters and Values: Science Fiction Films of the lyyos. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011. 230 pp. ISBN 9781443826921. $59.99 he.Reviewed by Dennis M. KratzThe intriguing possibilities of a collection of critical essays exploring the philosophic implications of heroes, monsters, and "disrupted values" in sf films of the 1970s are only occasionally realized in this uneven anthology. The title raised an expectation that these thematic threads wove together in some way. I found instead three disparate groupings: three essays on heroes in history, three on monsters, and six on values in disruption. By keeping the three threads separated under three different headings, even when essays in different sections dealt with overlapping material, the editors missed an opportunity to deepen the intellectual power and impact of the entire project.Of the three sections, the first, which is devoted to heroes, is by far the least consistent. It offers a thoughtful analysis of Rollerball (1975), an embarrassingly superficial and research-empty look at Alien (1979), and a labored essay that stitches together three distinct theoretical constructs (borrowed from Ernst Cassirer, Julia Kristeva, and Victor Turner) and then imposes them on Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). This inconsistency of tone, scholarly ambition, and intellectual depth reflects a basic problem with the collection. The audience for whom it is intended is not clear. Is it designed primarily for sf scholars or at least knowledgeable observers? For philosophers familiar or unfamiliar with sf films? For film historians? Each group will find something of value but more that is disappointing.The contributions to the second section, ostensibly dedicated to "monsters" although none deals at length with the subject, are all worth reading. Jennifer Welchman's examination of Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) attributes the source of the viewer's horrific response (and the film's power) not to the god-replacing computer itself but to the loss of "humanity's pride of place as the dominant form of life on the planet" (67) that the computer will initiate. Indeed, dystopian visions driven by human technological achievement is a recurring theme of the collection and the avowedly anti-modernist perspective taken by several of the essays. This and the following two essays, which also deal at best tangentially with monsters, could have been placed just as comfortably in the section labeled "Values in Disruption." Philosophy and sf coexist productively in Drew Dalton's use of ideas developed by Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas to discuss the impact of immortality and the loss of limits in Zardoz (1974). Here, as in Rohit Dalvi's discussion of Soylent Green (1973), the philosophic discussion emerges from and is linked effectively to issues present in the film. Dalvi offers the concept of ecosophy (the critical examination of humanity's relationship with the natural environment) as a lens through which to consider deeper levels of meaning in the film, such as our alienation from nature and the relation of that alienation to, in Dalvi's cogent phrase, "the tyranny of usefulness and the instrumental" (103). Both essays lured me back to the films and increased their impact as I re-watched them.The final section suffers from the inconsistency of the first. Sympathetic interpretations are mingled with essays that reveal far more about the learning and preferences of the contributor than about the films under consideration. On the one hand, we find here essays that demonstrate more opinions and learning than understanding. A contribution devoted to a discussion of lying in Star Wars (1977) focuses on false statements by Princess Leah and Obi Wan Kenobi. The analysis manages to include Kant, Kierkegaard, and John Stuart Mill while ignoring the essential role that the lies play in moving the narrative forward. …