A blog post* (from The Groovy Age of Horror) I read recently talks about how Zack Snyder is either lying to interviewers or insulting his audience when he talks about his movie, Sucker Punch. This reminded me of back when Star Wars first came out in 1977, and George Lucas made a big point of saying Star Wars isn’t science fiction, it’s a space fantasy. Some people make an argument based upon genre conventions in defense of this view, but it’s obviously a ploy to get free Star Wars merchandise. I think it’s more likely that Lucas made this point when he saw how fantastic his movie had turned out, and he realized how much of the rest of his life was going to be spent swamped by science fiction nerds. If only he could find a way to insult them enough to keep them mad enough at him to keep them away from him. (See, then maybe he could work and continue to make great movies. Hey, it worked for a while, at least…)
The movie was going to be a big hit, but maybe he could still try to keep the obsessive fan-boy element out of it. All he had to do was insult them somehow, but where to start? If he said something like, “Up yours, you greasy-haired, glasses-wearing mama’s boys!”, he might only piss off some of them. Plus it’s sexist; what about all the nerdettes? So how to get them all and only use one sentence? (That’s what a Jedi would do: it’s like being an insult Samurai. {Think Greg Giraldo†}) Eureka! How about diss the term “science fiction” by saying your huge science fiction movie isn’t actually science fiction at all? (<and thereby seem to be saying: “Up yours, science fiction! Only losers like you!”) Wouldn’t that work? Well, as it turns out, no. Maybe it would have worked for a Roger Corman movie; not for Star Wars, though. But it was a valiant effort.
Unfortunately for George, no amount of condescension was going to keep sci fi nerds away from seeing Star Wars, so he could really insult them all he wanted (Some people, like comedians Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn, suggest he did that with the prequel movies.) and it would have made no difference.
Why didn’t it work? Well it’s simple: Star Wars is a great movie! And more to the point: it has great characters who are fun to dress up as (which is perfect for sci fi conventions), and it has wonderful special effects. Sci fi nerds may be easy to give wedgies to, and it may be a breeze to keep them out of varsity sports, but try to keep them away from a great science fiction movie (just you try it!). If we, um, I mean, if they were willing to accept crappy visible garbage mats and bargain bin costumes for years on Star Trek, as well as still watch when they pulled obvious cost-saving stunts like setting their next alien planet up as the O.K. Corral or “Roaring 20s” Chicago, we were going to stand in line over and over again to see Star Wars. I mean, they were going to. (George Lucas has me feeling so bad about being a science fiction fan that I try to deny I am one. Damn you, George Lucas!) So just because he tried to not let us sit at his table with the cool kids at lunch, we still all went to see his movie. And we all loved him so much for making that movie that some of us even defended his point about Star Wars not being science fiction (check the internet), just like an abuse victim who makes excuses for their abuser’s behavior.
But Star Wars is science fiction. It’s also a space fantasy, a space opera, etc. But it’s definitely science fiction. If two tribes of cave-peoples battling each other in fur bikinis and running away from stop-motion dinosaurs is considered science fiction (and it is by a lot of people), Star Wars is science fiction. If some aliens wearing cheap rubber suits with ping pong ball eyes and painted disposable picnic plate flying saucers is science fiction, so is Star Wars. A lot of science fiction doesn’t necessarily deal with fictional science per se. What, for example, is dealing with man’s use of fictional science and the future it may hold in War of the Worlds? That’s man using contemporary technology to fight a greatly advanced alien race. “Well, the aliens’ technology is science fiction”, I can hear some people say. When we are shown using our own current technology, it’s not science fiction. And the aliens are obviously using their own current technology, just like the characters in Star Wars are. So basically, arguing in favor of War of the Worlds as science fiction is about the same as arguing for Star Wars as sci fi: They’ve both got monsters and laser guns and space ships and a death-struggle between the peoples of different planets. And when you think about it, you can’t really get much more science-fictiony than that. Even George Lucas would have to concede that point.
After all, isn’t the term “science fiction” less a genre categorization, and more of a call to scientists, saying: “Hey! You out there with the lab coats! Make all this technology real, please! I want to zap people with laser guns!”
* The blog post is here:
† Yes, I know that Greg Giraldo was a brilliant comedian; he was one of the best. But the fact is that he was also the best roast comic ever as far as I know, and the sad fact is that this is what he will probably be best remembered for.
