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      "body": "https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/sciencefiction19971.png?w=1462\n\nMost years have a few high-quality genre pieces to offer, some years see the release of a genre-defining film and a solid collection of supporting movies, and every now and then there are collisions where two absolute classics are released side-by-side (see:  1968, 1977, and 1982).  But, there’s nothing quite like what happened 20 years ago.  Eleven science fiction films of note were released in 1997, spanning all subgenres.  This piece will discuss each of these films, heralding 1997 as a seminal year for cinematic science fiction.\n\n<strong>Intellectual Dramas  </strong>\n\nIn the first section, we’ll look at three slow-burn, intellectual science fiction films:  <em>Contact</em>, <em>Gattaca, </em>and <em>Abre los Ojos </em>(<em>Open Your Eyes</em>).  These films respect the intelligence of the audience while discussing some of the most classic science fiction concepts.\n\n<em>Contact</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/contact.jpg\n> Jodie Foster, listenin' for aliens\n\nBased on the 1985 Carl Sagan novel of the same name and directed by Robert Zemeckis,<em> Contact</em> is a slow-burn contemplation of alien intelligence and the consequences of its discovery.  It stars Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, supported by an spellbinding cast of character actors:  James Woods, John Hurt (RIP), William Fichtner, Angela Basset, Tom Skerrit and Jena Malone as the young Ellie.  Its themes include the tension between reason and faith, contemplation of the unknown, and the drive for discovery.  <em>Contact</em> sports many low-key special effects, including a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0_5HFMPIg\"> trick with a mirror</a>, but also cashes in on the one big explosion and a <em>2001</em>-esque visual feast of a climax.\n\n<em>Gattaca</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/gatacca.png\n> Vincent and Jerome, both suffering from a society obsessed with perfection.\n\n<em>Gattaca</em> weaves a cautionary tale about genetic engineering run amok in a society obsessed with perfection.  Ethan Hawke stars as Vincent/Jerome, a man unfortunate enough to be born “the old-fashioned way”.  Lacking any genetic assistance, he and his genes are judged as “impure”, and his dream of becoming an astronaut at Gattaca is stillborn.  Jude Law (in his first feature role) is <em>the real Jerome</em>, and he provides Vincent with genetic material to obfuscate Vincent’s true origins.  With a taught mystery/crime story, <em>Gattaca</em> is a contemplative champion of self-directed ipseity and human achievement, and a fervent opponent of determinism.\n\n<em>Abre los Ojos </em>(<em>Open Your Eyes</em>)\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/abrelosojos.png\n> Masks are creepy.\n\nThis Spanish film from Alejandro Amenábar is the source material for <em>Vanilla Sky</em> starring Tom Cruise.  <em>Abre los Ojos </em>takes a more serious and curious approach to obsession with attractiveness and sexuality, the response to trauma, and ideas like artificial dream worlds and the ephemeral nature of memory.  Edward Noriega plays the narcissistic César, caught in a sex triangle between Sofía (Penélope Cruz; she’d reprise this same role in <em>Vanilla Sky</em>) and Nuria (Najwa Nimri ).  Mangled by a car accident and tortured by his disfigurement, César spirals downward as reality morphs around him in mind-bending ways.  The film has flavors of <em>The Matrix</em>, <em>Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</em>, and even things like <em>Inception</em>.\n\n<strong>Space Opera, Action, and Comedy/Satire</strong>\n\nNot all science fiction in the year of 1997 was dramatic and contemplative; there was also a great deal of fun to be had in <em>The Fifth Element</em>, <em>Men in Black</em>, and <em>Starship Troopers</em>.  These films can be loosely categorized as action films, or maybe comedies, or maybe Space Operas.  <em>Maybe</em>.  <em>Men In Black</em> is a little light on the action and set on Earth, but the film has that “grand universe” feel to it.  They’re all funny, though <em>Starship Trooper</em> leans towards satire.  However you want to classify these films, they ooze their own distinctive style.\n\n<em>The Fifth Element</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/5thelement.jpg\n> Multipass.  FYI:  This movie is back on the big screen for a couple of shows in May 2017.\n\nGood space opera that isn’t <em>Star Wars</em> or <em>Star Trek</em> is hard to come by.  Luc Besson’s <em>The Fifth Element</em> invigorated this subgenre with a vibrant and casual style, and fans of Jodorowsky and French graphic novel artist Moebius should recognize the aesthetic.  It’s a bizarre, crazy, and hyperactive kind of film that doesn’t take itself too seriously.  Aliens collected four stones (each representing an element) from Earth back in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, as these stones were the only means for defeating an evil force that appears every 5,000 years. In the 23<sup>rd</sup> century, the Fifth Element turn up – and it is a beautiful alien woman (Mila Jovovich).  Cabdriver Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) answers a call-to-action to unite her with the other four elements and save Earth.\n\n<em>Men in Black</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/003-men-in-black-theredlist.png\n> Is this the funniest film with aliens in it that isn't <em>Spaceballs</em>?\n\nThis comic book flick about a secret government agency tasked with monitoring alien activity on Earth was the third-highest grossing film of 1997 (#2 will appear later; #1 is a certain Celine Dion vehicle).  Blending comedy into genre is challenging, and <em>Men in Black </em>may be the best the sci-fi comedy that isn’t a direct spoof (<em>Ghostbusters</em> is horror; I’ll entertain arguments for <em>Galaxy Quest</em>).  There’s solid world-building and a great fish-out-of-water audience proxy in Will Smith’s J, but this film is anchored by the straight-man performance from Tommy Lee Jones.  It’s light-hearted tone is balanced with genuine science fiction, somehow blended perfectly.\n\n<em>Starship Troopers</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/starship-troopers.png\n> Hey 1997 critics:  was the SS uniform not obvious enough?  What about the cheer that erupts once the brain bug is afraid?  What about the final propaganda film?\n\nSpeaking  of tonal balance and playing it straight, boy oh boy did most people miss the point of Paul Verhoeven’s <em>Starship Troopers</em>.  Edward Neumeier adapted the screenplay from Robert Heinlein’s novel of the same name, but the filmmakers reframed their film as a stone-faced satire of right-wing militarism that Heinlein professed.  It’s astounding that many critics took the film at face value, like Verhoeven and Neumeier made <em>Robocop</em> on accident or something.  Regardless, the reception of <em>Starship Troopers</em> has improved since its release, and it is now properly regarded as one of the most biting and prescient pieces of satire in the last 25 years.  Full of blatant propaganda commercials, poster children falling hook-line-and-sinker for the jingoistic rhetoric, and an ending devoid of hope, <em>Starship Troopers</em> is a sardonic masterpiece.\n\n<strong>Weirdo Horror/Thrillers</strong>\n\nAs we transition into the more offbeat science fiction films, the quality of the films becomes more dependent on taste.  These movies have a horror/thriller flavor to them, and so adopt the kitsch charm of that particular subgenre.  These films include the deep-space horror <em>Event Horizon</em>, the creature feature <em>Mimic</em>, and the psychological mystery <em>Cube</em>.\n\n<em>Event Horizon</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/eventhorizon_still3.jpg\n> I could have picked <em>much</em> scarier scenes.\n\nDirected by Paul W. S. Anderson, <em>Event Horizon</em> stars Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne and is not the best science fiction film either has appeared in.  The crew of the <em>Lewis and Clark</em> respond to a distress call from a ship orbiting Neptune, where they discover the derelict <em>Event Horizon</em>, once thought lost in space.  It is found that the crew of the <em>Event Horizon</em> opened a rift in the space-time continuum (explained by the standard poking a hole in a piece of paper with a pencil, recently appropriated by <em>Interstellar</em>).  On the other side of that hole?  A hellish nightmarescape that possesses the crew to turn murderous.  Though panned upon release, <em>Event Horizon</em> has gained a significant cult following for its unabashed ridiculousness and so-bad-it’s-good style.\n\n<em>Mimic </em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/tumblr_mv4rfrqmo01s3c6who6_1280.png\n> It thinks it's people.\n\nWe’re starting to get into the deep cuts here with Guillermo del Toro’s second feature film (after the amazing <em>Cronos</em>).  <em>Mimic</em> is less balanced, but nonetheless has some interesting ideas and techniques that the viewer should recognize as belonging to del Toro’s phantasmagoric aesthetic.  The story focuses on a hyper-evolved cockroach that grows large and develops the ability to mimic its human prey.  The concept is a little silly and monster-of-the-week, but the execution from del Toro makes it palatable – and quite unsettling at times.\n\n<em>Cube</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/cube-featured-pic.jpg\n> Some of the very many cubes found in <em>Cube</em>.\n\nAs we continue across the globe, we come to the Canadian science fiction thriller <em>Cube</em> from director Vincenzo Natali.  This film is like a headier <em>Saw </em>on steroids, right down to the broadly-drawn characters, wooden acting, and skeletal story.  Built on the “strangers awaken in a bizarre room with no knowledge of how they got there” trope, <em>Cube</em> is set in an ever-morphing dungeon of numbered cube rooms, a set of which are booby trapped.  Different characters have their own theories as to why they are there and how the dungeon works, but very few real answers surface.  <em>Cube</em> has also developed a cult following in recent years, though personally I can’t stand the acting long enough to appreciate the film’s peculiarities.\n\n<strong>Bad Sequels:  Featuring Colons</strong>\n\nFinally, we come to two bad sequels:  <em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em> and <em>Alien: Resurrection</em>.  Though these films would have been at home in the action section, I preferred to keep the original films to themselves.  Both of these movies have strengths, but they are few and far between, even in comparison to the decidedly cult appeal of the aforementioned horror films.\n\n<em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/jurassic-park-lost-world.jpg\n> Somehow, this is not the stupidest moment from <em>The Lost World</em>.\n\nAs mentioned previously, <em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em> was the second-highest grossing film of 1997.  As a follow-up to the masterpiece that was the original, it leaves a great deal to be desired from a plot and character perspective, but it does boast amazing visual effects and rousing action set pieces (especially the velociraptor tall grass sequence).  Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Moore do their best with what they’re given, but in the end this film is just a structural mess.  I’ll admit to a certain cynicism here, and perhaps my interpretation of this film as a cash-grab is unwarranted.  But then a drop-out gymnast kicks a raptor from makeshift even bars, so I don’t really worry so much.\n\n<em>Alien: Resurrection</em>\n\n\"https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/alien_resurrection_1.jpg\n> Cloning, or: how to write yourself out of a corner in science fiction.\n\nAs unnecessary as <em>The Lost World </em>was<em>, Alien: Resurrection</em> puts it to shame.  By hand-waving “cloning” in the opening credits, this fourth entry in the <em>Alien </em>franchise is able to write itself out of the corner of the definite ending of <em>Alien 3</em>, though there still isn’t anywhere for it to go.  Many of the same story beats are hit:  xenomorphs escape and kill people, there’s a rag-tag group of space travelers, and there’s even another secret android.  Though the ending is laughable and stupid, brief stretches of the film are interesting, most notably the cloning room sequence.  Still, it’s hard to classify <em>Alien: Resurrection</em> as anything but the very worst film in the <em>Alien </em>franchise (<em>AvP</em> flavors notwithstanding).\n\n<strong>Conclusion</strong>\n\nWas 1997 the greatest year for science fiction in film ever?  Two of the top three grossing films were science fiction, and three of the top 10 (<em>The Fifth Element </em>was #9).  This collection of 11 films traverses all subgenres, and sports seminal examples of the space opera, the sci-fi/comedy, satire, space marines, and slow-burn intellectual dramas.  Other years may boast <em>more influential</em> films (I’m looking at you, 1977 and 1982), but no other year executes the variations of the genre so well.  Large or small, dramatic or comedic, satirical or serious, the panoply of science fiction from 1997 is unrivaled.\n\n<hr />\n\nI'm aware that this list isn't exhaustive, but it hits the major films.  Of these films, which have you seen?  Do you have a favorite?  Was 1997 the best year science fiction ever spent on the big screen?  What other years would you consider in the running?  Would you like to see <em>more</em> posts like this, looking at years like 1982 or 1999?  Please comment below with answers to these questions or anything else that you feel needs to be said.  As always, I appreciate the eyeballs, and I hope you got sufficient enjoyment out of this piece to justify the time you spent reading it.  If so, please consider sharing it on all the things.",
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      "body": "https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/sciencefiction19971.png?w=1462\n\nMost years have a few high-quality genre pieces to offer, some years see the release of a genre-defining film and a solid collection of supporting movies, and every now and then there are collisions where two absolute classics are released side-by-side (see:  1968, 1977, and 1982).  But, there’s nothing quite like what happened 20 years ago.  Eleven science fiction films of note were released in 1997, spanning all subgenres.  This piece will discuss each of these films, heralding 1997 as a seminal year for cinematic science fiction.\n\n<strong>Intellectual Dramas  </strong>\n\nIn the first section, we’ll look at three slow-burn, intellectual science fiction films:  <em>Contact</em>, <em>Gattaca, </em>and <em>Abre los Ojos </em>(<em>Open Your Eyes</em>).  These films respect the intelligence of the audience while discussing some of the most classic science fiction concepts.\n\n<em>Contact</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/contact.jpg\n> Jodie Foster, listenin' for aliens\n\nBased on the 1985 Carl Sagan novel of the same name and directed by Robert Zemeckis,<em> Contact</em> is a slow-burn contemplation of alien intelligence and the consequences of its discovery.  It stars Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, supported by an spellbinding cast of character actors:  James Woods, John Hurt (RIP), William Fichtner, Angela Basset, Tom Skerrit and Jena Malone as the young Ellie.  Its themes include the tension between reason and faith, contemplation of the unknown, and the drive for discovery.  <em>Contact</em> sports many low-key special effects, including a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0_5HFMPIg\"> trick with a mirror</a>, but also cashes in on the one big explosion and a <em>2001</em>-esque visual feast of a climax.\n\n<em>Gattaca</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/gatacca.png\n> Vincent and Jerome, both suffering from a society obsessed with perfection.\n\n<em>Gattaca</em> weaves a cautionary tale about genetic engineering run amok in a society obsessed with perfection.  Ethan Hawke stars as Vincent/Jerome, a man unfortunate enough to be born “the old-fashioned way”.  Lacking any genetic assistance, he and his genes are judged as “impure”, and his dream of becoming an astronaut at Gattaca is stillborn.  Jude Law (in his first feature role) is <em>the real Jerome</em>, and he provides Vincent with genetic material to obfuscate Vincent’s true origins.  With a taught mystery/crime story, <em>Gattaca</em> is a contemplative champion of self-directed ipseity and human achievement, and a fervent opponent of determinism.\n\n<em>Abre los Ojos </em>(<em>Open Your Eyes</em>)\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/abrelosojos.png\n> Masks are creepy.\n\nThis Spanish film from Alejandro Amenábar is the source material for <em>Vanilla Sky</em> starring Tom Cruise.  <em>Abre los Ojos </em>takes a more serious and curious approach to obsession with attractiveness and sexuality, the response to trauma, and ideas like artificial dream worlds and the ephemeral nature of memory.  Edward Noriega plays the narcissistic César, caught in a sex triangle between Sofía (Penélope Cruz; she’d reprise this same role in <em>Vanilla Sky</em>) and Nuria (Najwa Nimri ).  Mangled by a car accident and tortured by his disfigurement, César spirals downward as reality morphs around him in mind-bending ways.  The film has flavors of <em>The Matrix</em>, <em>Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</em>, and even things like <em>Inception</em>.\n\n<strong>Space Opera, Action, and Comedy/Satire</strong>\n\nNot all science fiction in the year of 1997 was dramatic and contemplative; there was also a great deal of fun to be had in <em>The Fifth Element</em>, <em>Men in Black</em>, and <em>Starship Troopers</em>.  These films can be loosely categorized as action films, or maybe comedies, or maybe Space Operas.  <em>Maybe</em>.  <em>Men In Black</em> is a little light on the action and set on Earth, but the film has that “grand universe” feel to it.  They’re all funny, though <em>Starship Trooper</em> leans towards satire.  However you want to classify these films, they ooze their own distinctive style.\n\n<em>The Fifth Element</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/5thelement.jpg\n> Multipass.  FYI:  This movie is back on the big screen for a couple of shows in May 2017.\n\nGood space opera that isn’t <em>Star Wars</em> or <em>Star Trek</em> is hard to come by.  Luc Besson’s <em>The Fifth Element</em> invigorated this subgenre with a vibrant and casual style, and fans of Jodorowsky and French graphic novel artist Moebius should recognize the aesthetic.  It’s a bizarre, crazy, and hyperactive kind of film that doesn’t take itself too seriously.  Aliens collected four stones (each representing an element) from Earth back in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, as these stones were the only means for defeating an evil force that appears every 5,000 years. In the 23<sup>rd</sup> century, the Fifth Element turn up – and it is a beautiful alien woman (Mila Jovovich).  Cabdriver Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) answers a call-to-action to unite her with the other four elements and save Earth.\n\n<em>Men in Black</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/003-men-in-black-theredlist.png\n> Is this the funniest film with aliens in it that isn't <em>Spaceballs</em>?\n\nThis comic book flick about a secret government agency tasked with monitoring alien activity on Earth was the third-highest grossing film of 1997 (#2 will appear later; #1 is a certain Celine Dion vehicle).  Blending comedy into genre is challenging, and <em>Men in Black </em>may be the best the sci-fi comedy that isn’t a direct spoof (<em>Ghostbusters</em> is horror; I’ll entertain arguments for <em>Galaxy Quest</em>).  There’s solid world-building and a great fish-out-of-water audience proxy in Will Smith’s J, but this film is anchored by the straight-man performance from Tommy Lee Jones.  It’s light-hearted tone is balanced with genuine science fiction, somehow blended perfectly.\n\n<em>Starship Troopers</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/starship-troopers.png\n> Hey 1997 critics:  was the SS uniform not obvious enough?  What about the cheer that erupts once the brain bug is afraid?  What about the final propaganda film?\n\nSpeaking  of tonal balance and playing it straight, boy oh boy did most people miss the point of Paul Verhoeven’s <em>Starship Troopers</em>.  Edward Neumeier adapted the screenplay from Robert Heinlein’s novel of the same name, but the filmmakers reframed their film as a stone-faced satire of right-wing militarism that Heinlein professed.  It’s astounding that many critics took the film at face value, like Verhoeven and Neumeier made <em>Robocop</em> on accident or something.  Regardless, the reception of <em>Starship Troopers</em> has improved since its release, and it is now properly regarded as one of the most biting and prescient pieces of satire in the last 25 years.  Full of blatant propaganda commercials, poster children falling hook-line-and-sinker for the jingoistic rhetoric, and an ending devoid of hope, <em>Starship Troopers</em> is a sardonic masterpiece.\n\n<strong>Weirdo Horror/Thrillers</strong>\n\nAs we transition into the more offbeat science fiction films, the quality of the films becomes more dependent on taste.  These movies have a horror/thriller flavor to them, and so adopt the kitsch charm of that particular subgenre.  These films include the deep-space horror <em>Event Horizon</em>, the creature feature <em>Mimic</em>, and the psychological mystery <em>Cube</em>.\n\n<em>Event Horizon</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/eventhorizon_still3.jpg\n> I could have picked <em>much</em> scarier scenes.\n\nDirected by Paul W. S. Anderson, <em>Event Horizon</em> stars Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne and is not the best science fiction film either has appeared in.  The crew of the <em>Lewis and Clark</em> respond to a distress call from a ship orbiting Neptune, where they discover the derelict <em>Event Horizon</em>, once thought lost in space.  It is found that the crew of the <em>Event Horizon</em> opened a rift in the space-time continuum (explained by the standard poking a hole in a piece of paper with a pencil, recently appropriated by <em>Interstellar</em>).  On the other side of that hole?  A hellish nightmarescape that possesses the crew to turn murderous.  Though panned upon release, <em>Event Horizon</em> has gained a significant cult following for its unabashed ridiculousness and so-bad-it’s-good style.\n\n<em>Mimic </em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/tumblr_mv4rfrqmo01s3c6who6_1280.png\n> It thinks it's people.\n\nWe’re starting to get into the deep cuts here with Guillermo del Toro’s second feature film (after the amazing <em>Cronos</em>).  <em>Mimic</em> is less balanced, but nonetheless has some interesting ideas and techniques that the viewer should recognize as belonging to del Toro’s phantasmagoric aesthetic.  The story focuses on a hyper-evolved cockroach that grows large and develops the ability to mimic its human prey.  The concept is a little silly and monster-of-the-week, but the execution from del Toro makes it palatable – and quite unsettling at times.\n\n<em>Cube</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/cube-featured-pic.jpg\n> Some of the very many cubes found in <em>Cube</em>.\n\nAs we continue across the globe, we come to the Canadian science fiction thriller <em>Cube</em> from director Vincenzo Natali.  This film is like a headier <em>Saw </em>on steroids, right down to the broadly-drawn characters, wooden acting, and skeletal story.  Built on the “strangers awaken in a bizarre room with no knowledge of how they got there” trope, <em>Cube</em> is set in an ever-morphing dungeon of numbered cube rooms, a set of which are booby trapped.  Different characters have their own theories as to why they are there and how the dungeon works, but very few real answers surface.  <em>Cube</em> has also developed a cult following in recent years, though personally I can’t stand the acting long enough to appreciate the film’s peculiarities.\n\n<strong>Bad Sequels:  Featuring Colons</strong>\n\nFinally, we come to two bad sequels:  <em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em> and <em>Alien: Resurrection</em>.  Though these films would have been at home in the action section, I preferred to keep the original films to themselves.  Both of these movies have strengths, but they are few and far between, even in comparison to the decidedly cult appeal of the aforementioned horror films.\n\n<em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/jurassic-park-lost-world.jpg\n> Somehow, this is not the stupidest moment from <em>The Lost World</em>.\n\nAs mentioned previously, <em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em> was the second-highest grossing film of 1997.  As a follow-up to the masterpiece that was the original, it leaves a great deal to be desired from a plot and character perspective, but it does boast amazing visual effects and rousing action set pieces (especially the velociraptor tall grass sequence).  Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Moore do their best with what they’re given, but in the end this film is just a structural mess.  I’ll admit to a certain cynicism here, and perhaps my interpretation of this film as a cash-grab is unwarranted.  But then a drop-out gymnast kicks a raptor from makeshift even bars, so I don’t really worry so much.\n\n<em>Alien: Resurrection</em>\n\n\"https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/alien_resurrection_1.jpg\n> Cloning, or: how to write yourself out of a corner in science fiction.\n\nAs unnecessary as <em>The Lost World </em>was<em>, Alien: Resurrection</em> puts it to shame.  By hand-waving “cloning” in the opening credits, this fourth entry in the <em>Alien </em>franchise is able to write itself out of the corner of the definite ending of <em>Alien 3</em>, though there still isn’t anywhere for it to go.  Many of the same story beats are hit:  xenomorphs escape and kill people, there’s a rag-tag group of space travelers, and there’s even another secret android.  Though the ending is laughable and stupid, brief stretches of the film are interesting, most notably the cloning room sequence.  Still, it’s hard to classify <em>Alien: Resurrection</em> as anything but the very worst film in the <em>Alien </em>franchise (<em>AvP</em> flavors notwithstanding).\n\n<strong>Conclusion</strong>\n\nWas 1997 the greatest year for science fiction in film ever?  Two of the top three grossing films were science fiction, and three of the top 10 (<em>The Fifth Element </em>was #9).  This collection of 11 films traverses all subgenres, and sports seminal examples of the space opera, the sci-fi/comedy, satire, space marines, and slow-burn intellectual dramas.  Other years may boast <em>more influential</em> films (I’m looking at you, 1977 and 1982), but no other year executes the variations of the genre so well.  Large or small, dramatic or comedic, satirical or serious, the panoply of science fiction from 1997 is unrivaled.\n\n<hr />\n\nI'm aware that this list isn't exhaustive, but it hits the major films.  Of these films, which have you seen?  Do you have a favorite?  Was 1997 the best year science fiction ever spent on the big screen?  What other years would you consider in the running?  Would you like to see <em>more</em> posts like this, looking at years like 1982 or 1999?  Please comment below with answers to these questions or anything else that you feel needs to be said.  As always, I appreciate the eyeballs, and I hope you got sufficient enjoyment out of this piece to justify the time you spent reading it.  If so, please consider sharing it on all the things.",
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      "body": "https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/sciencefiction19971.png?w=1462\n\nMost years have a few high-quality genre pieces to offer, some years see the release of a genre-defining film and a solid collection of supporting movies, and every now and then there are collisions where two absolute classics are released side-by-side (see:  1968, 1977, and 1982).  But, there’s nothing quite like what happened 20 years ago.  Eleven science fiction films of note were released in 1997, spanning all subgenres.  This piece will discuss each of these films, heralding 1997 as a seminal year for cinematic science fiction.\n\n<strong>Intellectual Dramas  </strong>\n\nIn the first section, we’ll look at three slow-burn, intellectual science fiction films:  <em>Contact</em>, <em>Gattaca, </em>and <em>Abre los Ojos </em>(<em>Open Your Eyes</em>).  These films respect the intelligence of the audience while discussing some of the most classic science fiction concepts.\n\n<em>Contact</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/contact.jpg\n> Jodie Foster, listenin' for aliens\n\nBased on the 1985 Carl Sagan novel of the same name and directed by Robert Zemeckis,<em> Contact</em> is a slow-burn contemplation of alien intelligence and the consequences of its discovery.  It stars Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, supported by an spellbinding cast of character actors:  James Woods, John Hurt (RIP), William Fichtner, Angela Basset, Tom Skerrit and Jena Malone as the young Ellie.  Its themes include the tension between reason and faith, contemplation of the unknown, and the drive for discovery.  <em>Contact</em> sports many low-key special effects, including a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0_5HFMPIg\"> trick with a mirror</a>, but also cashes in on the one big explosion and a <em>2001</em>-esque visual feast of a climax.\n\n<em>Gattaca</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/gatacca.png\n> Vincent and Jerome, both suffering from a society obsessed with perfection.\n\n<em>Gattaca</em> weaves a cautionary tale about genetic engineering run amok in a society obsessed with perfection.  Ethan Hawke stars as Vincent/Jerome, a man unfortunate enough to be born “the old-fashioned way”.  Lacking any genetic assistance, he and his genes are judged as “impure”, and his dream of becoming an astronaut at Gattaca is stillborn.  Jude Law (in his first feature role) is <em>the real Jerome</em>, and he provides Vincent with genetic material to obfuscate Vincent’s true origins.  With a taught mystery/crime story, <em>Gattaca</em> is a contemplative champion of self-directed ipseity and human achievement, and a fervent opponent of determinism.\n\n<em>Abre los Ojos </em>(<em>Open Your Eyes</em>)\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/abrelosojos.png\n> Masks are creepy.\n\nThis Spanish film from Alejandro Amenábar is the source material for <em>Vanilla Sky</em> starring Tom Cruise.  <em>Abre los Ojos </em>takes a more serious and curious approach to obsession with attractiveness and sexuality, the response to trauma, and ideas like artificial dream worlds and the ephemeral nature of memory.  Edward Noriega plays the narcissistic César, caught in a sex triangle between Sofía (Penélope Cruz; she’d reprise this same role in <em>Vanilla Sky</em>) and Nuria (Najwa Nimri ).  Mangled by a car accident and tortured by his disfigurement, César spirals downward as reality morphs around him in mind-bending ways.  The film has flavors of <em>The Matrix</em>, <em>Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</em>, and even things like <em>Inception</em>.\n\n<strong>Space Opera, Action, and Comedy/Satire</strong>\n\nNot all science fiction in the year of 1997 was dramatic and contemplative; there was also a great deal of fun to be had in <em>The Fifth Element</em>, <em>Men in Black</em>, and <em>Starship Troopers</em>.  These films can be loosely categorized as action films, or maybe comedies, or maybe Space Operas.  <em>Maybe</em>.  <em>Men In Black</em> is a little light on the action and set on Earth, but the film has that “grand universe” feel to it.  They’re all funny, though <em>Starship Trooper</em> leans towards satire.  However you want to classify these films, they ooze their own distinctive style.\n\n<em>The Fifth Element</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/5thelement.jpg\n> Multipass.  FYI:  This movie is back on the big screen for a couple of shows in May 2017.\n\nGood space opera that isn’t <em>Star Wars</em> or <em>Star Trek</em> is hard to come by.  Luc Besson’s <em>The Fifth Element</em> invigorated this subgenre with a vibrant and casual style, and fans of Jodorowsky and French graphic novel artist Moebius should recognize the aesthetic.  It’s a bizarre, crazy, and hyperactive kind of film that doesn’t take itself too seriously.  Aliens collected four stones (each representing an element) from Earth back in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, as these stones were the only means for defeating an evil force that appears every 5,000 years. In the 23<sup>rd</sup> century, the Fifth Element turn up – and it is a beautiful alien woman (Mila Jovovich).  Cabdriver Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) answers a call-to-action to unite her with the other four elements and save Earth.\n\n<em>Men in Black</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/003-men-in-black-theredlist.png\n> Is this the funniest film with aliens in it that isn't <em>Spaceballs</em>?\n\nThis comic book flick about a secret government agency tasked with monitoring alien activity on Earth was the third-highest grossing film of 1997 (#2 will appear later; #1 is a certain Celine Dion vehicle).  Blending comedy into genre is challenging, and <em>Men in Black </em>may be the best the sci-fi comedy that isn’t a direct spoof (<em>Ghostbusters</em> is horror; I’ll entertain arguments for <em>Galaxy Quest</em>).  There’s solid world-building and a great fish-out-of-water audience proxy in Will Smith’s J, but this film is anchored by the straight-man performance from Tommy Lee Jones.  It’s light-hearted tone is balanced with genuine science fiction, somehow blended perfectly.\n\n<em>Starship Troopers</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/starship-troopers.png\n> Hey 1997 critics:  was the SS uniform not obvious enough?  What about the cheer that erupts once the brain bug is afraid?  What about the final propaganda film?\n\nSpeaking  of tonal balance and playing it straight, boy oh boy did most people miss the point of Paul Verhoeven’s <em>Starship Troopers</em>.  Edward Neumeier adapted the screenplay from Robert Heinlein’s novel of the same name, but the filmmakers reframed their film as a stone-faced satire of right-wing militarism that Heinlein professed.  It’s astounding that many critics took the film at face value, like Verhoeven and Neumeier made <em>Robocop</em> on accident or something.  Regardless, the reception of <em>Starship Troopers</em> has improved since its release, and it is now properly regarded as one of the most biting and prescient pieces of satire in the last 25 years.  Full of blatant propaganda commercials, poster children falling hook-line-and-sinker for the jingoistic rhetoric, and an ending devoid of hope, <em>Starship Troopers</em> is a sardonic masterpiece.\n\n<strong>Weirdo Horror/Thrillers</strong>\n\nAs we transition into the more offbeat science fiction films, the quality of the films becomes more dependent on taste.  These movies have a horror/thriller flavor to them, and so adopt the kitsch charm of that particular subgenre.  These films include the deep-space horror <em>Event Horizon</em>, the creature feature <em>Mimic</em>, and the psychological mystery <em>Cube</em>.\n\n<em>Event Horizon</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/eventhorizon_still3.jpg\n> I could have picked <em>much</em> scarier scenes.\n\nDirected by Paul W. S. Anderson, <em>Event Horizon</em> stars Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne and is not the best science fiction film either has appeared in.  The crew of the <em>Lewis and Clark</em> respond to a distress call from a ship orbiting Neptune, where they discover the derelict <em>Event Horizon</em>, once thought lost in space.  It is found that the crew of the <em>Event Horizon</em> opened a rift in the space-time continuum (explained by the standard poking a hole in a piece of paper with a pencil, recently appropriated by <em>Interstellar</em>).  On the other side of that hole?  A hellish nightmarescape that possesses the crew to turn murderous.  Though panned upon release, <em>Event Horizon</em> has gained a significant cult following for its unabashed ridiculousness and so-bad-it’s-good style.\n\n<em>Mimic </em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/tumblr_mv4rfrqmo01s3c6who6_1280.png\n> It thinks it's people.\n\nWe’re starting to get into the deep cuts here with Guillermo del Toro’s second feature film (after the amazing <em>Cronos</em>).  <em>Mimic</em> is less balanced, but nonetheless has some interesting ideas and techniques that the viewer should recognize as belonging to del Toro’s phantasmagoric aesthetic.  The story focuses on a hyper-evolved cockroach that grows large and develops the ability to mimic its human prey.  The concept is a little silly and monster-of-the-week, but the execution from del Toro makes it palatable – and quite unsettling at times.\n\n<em>Cube</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/cube-featured-pic.jpg\n> Some of the very many cubes found in <em>Cube</em>.\n\nAs we continue across the globe, we come to the Canadian science fiction thriller <em>Cube</em> from director Vincenzo Natali.  This film is like a headier <em>Saw </em>on steroids, right down to the broadly-drawn characters, wooden acting, and skeletal story.  Built on the “strangers awaken in a bizarre room with no knowledge of how they got there” trope, <em>Cube</em> is set in an ever-morphing dungeon of numbered cube rooms, a set of which are booby trapped.  Different characters have their own theories as to why they are there and how the dungeon works, but very few real answers surface.  <em>Cube</em> has also developed a cult following in recent years, though personally I can’t stand the acting long enough to appreciate the film’s peculiarities.\n\n<strong>Bad Sequels:  Featuring Colons</strong>\n\nFinally, we come to two bad sequels:  <em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em> and <em>Alien: Resurrection</em>.  Though these films would have been at home in the action section, I preferred to keep the original films to themselves.  Both of these movies have strengths, but they are few and far between, even in comparison to the decidedly cult appeal of the aforementioned horror films.\n\n<em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/jurassic-park-lost-world.jpg\n> Somehow, this is not the stupidest moment from <em>The Lost World</em>.\n\nAs mentioned previously, <em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em> was the second-highest grossing film of 1997.  As a follow-up to the masterpiece that was the original, it leaves a great deal to be desired from a plot and character perspective, but it does boast amazing visual effects and rousing action set pieces (especially the velociraptor tall grass sequence).  Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Moore do their best with what they’re given, but in the end this film is just a structural mess.  I’ll admit to a certain cynicism here, and perhaps my interpretation of this film as a cash-grab is unwarranted.  But then a drop-out gymnast kicks a raptor from makeshift even bars, so I don’t really worry so much.\n\n<em>Alien: Resurrection</em>\n\n\"https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/alien_resurrection_1.jpg\n> Cloning, or: how to write yourself out of a corner in science fiction.\n\nAs unnecessary as <em>The Lost World </em>was<em>, Alien: Resurrection</em> puts it to shame.  By hand-waving “cloning” in the opening credits, this fourth entry in the <em>Alien </em>franchise is able to write itself out of the corner of the definite ending of <em>Alien 3</em>, though there still isn’t anywhere for it to go.  Many of the same story beats are hit:  xenomorphs escape and kill people, there’s a rag-tag group of space travelers, and there’s even another secret android.  Though the ending is laughable and stupid, brief stretches of the film are interesting, most notably the cloning room sequence.  Still, it’s hard to classify <em>Alien: Resurrection</em> as anything but the very worst film in the <em>Alien </em>franchise (<em>AvP</em> flavors notwithstanding).\n\n<strong>Conclusion</strong>\n\nWas 1997 the greatest year for science fiction in film ever?  Two of the top three grossing films were science fiction, and three of the top 10 (<em>The Fifth Element </em>was #9).  This collection of 11 films traverses all subgenres, and sports seminal examples of the space opera, the sci-fi/comedy, satire, space marines, and slow-burn intellectual dramas.  Other years may boast <em>more influential</em> films (I’m looking at you, 1977 and 1982), but no other year executes the variations of the genre so well.  Large or small, dramatic or comedic, satirical or serious, the panoply of science fiction from 1997 is unrivaled.\n\n<hr />\n\nI'm aware that this list isn't exhaustive, but it hits the major films.  Of these films, which have you seen?  Do you have a favorite?  Was 1997 the best year science fiction ever spent on the big screen?  What other years would you consider in the running?  Would you like to see <em>more</em> posts like this, looking at years like 1982 or 1999?  Please comment below with answers to these questions or anything else that you feel needs to be said.  As always, I appreciate the eyeballs, and I hope you got sufficient enjoyment out of this piece to justify the time you spent reading it.  If so, please consider sharing it on all the things.",
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      "body": "https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/sciencefiction19971.png?w=1462\n\nMost years have a few high-quality genre pieces to offer, some years see the release of a genre-defining film and a solid collection of supporting movies, and every now and then there are collisions where two absolute classics are released side-by-side (see:  1968, 1977, and 1982).  But, there’s nothing quite like what happened 20 years ago.  Eleven science fiction films of note were released in 1997, spanning all subgenres.  This piece will discuss each of these films, heralding 1997 as a seminal year for cinematic science fiction.\n\n<strong>Intellectual Dramas  </strong>\n\nIn the first section, we’ll look at three slow-burn, intellectual science fiction films:  <em>Contact</em>, <em>Gattaca, </em>and <em>Abre los Ojos </em>(<em>Open Your Eyes</em>).  These films respect the intelligence of the audience while discussing some of the most classic science fiction concepts.\n\n<em>Contact</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/contact.jpg\n> Jodie Foster, listenin' for aliens\n\nBased on the 1985 Carl Sagan novel of the same name and directed by Robert Zemeckis,<em> Contact</em> is a slow-burn contemplation of alien intelligence and the consequences of its discovery.  It stars Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, supported by an spellbinding cast of character actors:  James Woods, John Hurt (RIP), William Fichtner, Angela Basset, Tom Skerrit and Jena Malone as the young Ellie.  Its themes include the tension between reason and faith, contemplation of the unknown, and the drive for discovery.  <em>Contact</em> sports many low-key special effects, including a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0_5HFMPIg\"> trick with a mirror</a>, but also cashes in on the one big explosion and a <em>2001</em>-esque visual feast of a climax.\n\n<em>Gattaca</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/gatacca.png\n> Vincent and Jerome, both suffering from a society obsessed with perfection.\n\n<em>Gattaca</em> weaves a cautionary tale about genetic engineering run amok in a society obsessed with perfection.  Ethan Hawke stars as Vincent/Jerome, a man unfortunate enough to be born “the old-fashioned way”.  Lacking any genetic assistance, he and his genes are judged as “impure”, and his dream of becoming an astronaut at Gattaca is stillborn.  Jude Law (in his first feature role) is <em>the real Jerome</em>, and he provides Vincent with genetic material to obfuscate Vincent’s true origins.  With a taught mystery/crime story, <em>Gattaca</em> is a contemplative champion of self-directed ipseity and human achievement, and a fervent opponent of determinism.\n\n<em>Abre los Ojos </em>(<em>Open Your Eyes</em>)\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/abrelosojos.png\n> Masks are creepy.\n\nThis Spanish film from Alejandro Amenábar is the source material for <em>Vanilla Sky</em> starring Tom Cruise.  <em>Abre los Ojos </em>takes a more serious and curious approach to obsession with attractiveness and sexuality, the response to trauma, and ideas like artificial dream worlds and the ephemeral nature of memory.  Edward Noriega plays the narcissistic César, caught in a sex triangle between Sofía (Penélope Cruz; she’d reprise this same role in <em>Vanilla Sky</em>) and Nuria (Najwa Nimri ).  Mangled by a car accident and tortured by his disfigurement, César spirals downward as reality morphs around him in mind-bending ways.  The film has flavors of <em>The Matrix</em>, <em>Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</em>, and even things like <em>Inception</em>.\n\n<strong>Space Opera, Action, and Comedy/Satire</strong>\n\nNot all science fiction in the year of 1997 was dramatic and contemplative; there was also a great deal of fun to be had in <em>The Fifth Element</em>, <em>Men in Black</em>, and <em>Starship Troopers</em>.  These films can be loosely categorized as action films, or maybe comedies, or maybe Space Operas.  <em>Maybe</em>.  <em>Men In Black</em> is a little light on the action and set on Earth, but the film has that “grand universe” feel to it.  They’re all funny, though <em>Starship Trooper</em> leans towards satire.  However you want to classify these films, they ooze their own distinctive style.\n\n<em>The Fifth Element</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/5thelement.jpg\n> Multipass.  FYI:  This movie is back on the big screen for a couple of shows in May 2017.\n\nGood space opera that isn’t <em>Star Wars</em> or <em>Star Trek</em> is hard to come by.  Luc Besson’s <em>The Fifth Element</em> invigorated this subgenre with a vibrant and casual style, and fans of Jodorowsky and French graphic novel artist Moebius should recognize the aesthetic.  It’s a bizarre, crazy, and hyperactive kind of film that doesn’t take itself too seriously.  Aliens collected four stones (each representing an element) from Earth back in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, as these stones were the only means for defeating an evil force that appears every 5,000 years. In the 23<sup>rd</sup> century, the Fifth Element turn up – and it is a beautiful alien woman (Mila Jovovich).  Cabdriver Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) answers a call-to-action to unite her with the other four elements and save Earth.\n\n<em>Men in Black</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/003-men-in-black-theredlist.png\n> Is this the funniest film with aliens in it that isn't <em>Spaceballs</em>?\n\nThis comic book flick about a secret government agency tasked with monitoring alien activity on Earth was the third-highest grossing film of 1997 (#2 will appear later; #1 is a certain Celine Dion vehicle).  Blending comedy into genre is challenging, and <em>Men in Black </em>may be the best the sci-fi comedy that isn’t a direct spoof (<em>Ghostbusters</em> is horror; I’ll entertain arguments for <em>Galaxy Quest</em>).  There’s solid world-building and a great fish-out-of-water audience proxy in Will Smith’s J, but this film is anchored by the straight-man performance from Tommy Lee Jones.  It’s light-hearted tone is balanced with genuine science fiction, somehow blended perfectly.\n\n<em>Starship Troopers</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/starship-troopers.png\n> Hey 1997 critics:  was the SS uniform not obvious enough?  What about the cheer that erupts once the brain bug is afraid?  What about the final propaganda film?\n\nSpeaking  of tonal balance and playing it straight, boy oh boy did most people miss the point of Paul Verhoeven’s <em>Starship Troopers</em>.  Edward Neumeier adapted the screenplay from Robert Heinlein’s novel of the same name, but the filmmakers reframed their film as a stone-faced satire of right-wing militarism that Heinlein professed.  It’s astounding that many critics took the film at face value, like Verhoeven and Neumeier made <em>Robocop</em> on accident or something.  Regardless, the reception of <em>Starship Troopers</em> has improved since its release, and it is now properly regarded as one of the most biting and prescient pieces of satire in the last 25 years.  Full of blatant propaganda commercials, poster children falling hook-line-and-sinker for the jingoistic rhetoric, and an ending devoid of hope, <em>Starship Troopers</em> is a sardonic masterpiece.\n\n<strong>Weirdo Horror/Thrillers</strong>\n\nAs we transition into the more offbeat science fiction films, the quality of the films becomes more dependent on taste.  These movies have a horror/thriller flavor to them, and so adopt the kitsch charm of that particular subgenre.  These films include the deep-space horror <em>Event Horizon</em>, the creature feature <em>Mimic</em>, and the psychological mystery <em>Cube</em>.\n\n<em>Event Horizon</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/eventhorizon_still3.jpg\n> I could have picked <em>much</em> scarier scenes.\n\nDirected by Paul W. S. Anderson, <em>Event Horizon</em> stars Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne and is not the best science fiction film either has appeared in.  The crew of the <em>Lewis and Clark</em> respond to a distress call from a ship orbiting Neptune, where they discover the derelict <em>Event Horizon</em>, once thought lost in space.  It is found that the crew of the <em>Event Horizon</em> opened a rift in the space-time continuum (explained by the standard poking a hole in a piece of paper with a pencil, recently appropriated by <em>Interstellar</em>).  On the other side of that hole?  A hellish nightmarescape that possesses the crew to turn murderous.  Though panned upon release, <em>Event Horizon</em> has gained a significant cult following for its unabashed ridiculousness and so-bad-it’s-good style.\n\n<em>Mimic </em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/tumblr_mv4rfrqmo01s3c6who6_1280.png\n> It thinks it's people.\n\nWe’re starting to get into the deep cuts here with Guillermo del Toro’s second feature film (after the amazing <em>Cronos</em>).  <em>Mimic</em> is less balanced, but nonetheless has some interesting ideas and techniques that the viewer should recognize as belonging to del Toro’s phantasmagoric aesthetic.  The story focuses on a hyper-evolved cockroach that grows large and develops the ability to mimic its human prey.  The concept is a little silly and monster-of-the-week, but the execution from del Toro makes it palatable – and quite unsettling at times.\n\n<em>Cube</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/cube-featured-pic.jpg\n> Some of the very many cubes found in <em>Cube</em>.\n\nAs we continue across the globe, we come to the Canadian science fiction thriller <em>Cube</em> from director Vincenzo Natali.  This film is like a headier <em>Saw </em>on steroids, right down to the broadly-drawn characters, wooden acting, and skeletal story.  Built on the “strangers awaken in a bizarre room with no knowledge of how they got there” trope, <em>Cube</em> is set in an ever-morphing dungeon of numbered cube rooms, a set of which are booby trapped.  Different characters have their own theories as to why they are there and how the dungeon works, but very few real answers surface.  <em>Cube</em> has also developed a cult following in recent years, though personally I can’t stand the acting long enough to appreciate the film’s peculiarities.\n\n<strong>Bad Sequels:  Featuring Colons</strong>\n\nFinally, we come to two bad sequels:  <em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em> and <em>Alien: Resurrection</em>.  Though these films would have been at home in the action section, I preferred to keep the original films to themselves.  Both of these movies have strengths, but they are few and far between, even in comparison to the decidedly cult appeal of the aforementioned horror films.\n\n<em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em>\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/jurassic-park-lost-world.jpg\n> Somehow, this is not the stupidest moment from <em>The Lost World</em>.\n\nAs mentioned previously, <em>The Lost World: Jurassic Park</em> was the second-highest grossing film of 1997.  As a follow-up to the masterpiece that was the original, it leaves a great deal to be desired from a plot and character perspective, but it does boast amazing visual effects and rousing action set pieces (especially the velociraptor tall grass sequence).  Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Moore do their best with what they’re given, but in the end this film is just a structural mess.  I’ll admit to a certain cynicism here, and perhaps my interpretation of this film as a cash-grab is unwarranted.  But then a drop-out gymnast kicks a raptor from makeshift even bars, so I don’t really worry so much.\n\n<em>Alien: Resurrection</em>\n\n\"https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/alien_resurrection_1.jpg\n> Cloning, or: how to write yourself out of a corner in science fiction.\n\nAs unnecessary as <em>The Lost World </em>was<em>, Alien: Resurrection</em> puts it to shame.  By hand-waving “cloning” in the opening credits, this fourth entry in the <em>Alien </em>franchise is able to write itself out of the corner of the definite ending of <em>Alien 3</em>, though there still isn’t anywhere for it to go.  Many of the same story beats are hit:  xenomorphs escape and kill people, there’s a rag-tag group of space travelers, and there’s even another secret android.  Though the ending is laughable and stupid, brief stretches of the film are interesting, most notably the cloning room sequence.  Still, it’s hard to classify <em>Alien: Resurrection</em> as anything but the very worst film in the <em>Alien </em>franchise (<em>AvP</em> flavors notwithstanding).\n\n<strong>Conclusion</strong>\n\nWas 1997 the greatest year for science fiction in film ever?  Two of the top three grossing films were science fiction, and three of the top 10 (<em>The Fifth Element </em>was #9).  This collection of 11 films traverses all subgenres, and sports seminal examples of the space opera, the sci-fi/comedy, satire, space marines, and slow-burn intellectual dramas.  Other years may boast <em>more influential</em> films (I’m looking at you, 1977 and 1982), but no other year executes the variations of the genre so well.  Large or small, dramatic or comedic, satirical or serious, the panoply of science fiction from 1997 is unrivaled.\n\n<hr />\n\nI'm aware that this list isn't exhaustive, but it hits the major films.  Of these films, which have you seen?  Do you have a favorite?  Was 1997 the best year science fiction ever spent on the big screen?  What other years would you consider in the running?  Would you like to see <em>more</em> posts like this, looking at years like 1982 or 1999?  Please comment below with answers to these questions or anything else that you feel needs to be said.  As always, I appreciate the eyeballs, and I hope you got sufficient enjoyment out of this piece to justify the time you spent reading it.  If so, please consider sharing it on all the things.",
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      "body": "https://d3uf2ssic990td.cloudfront.net/images/4919/43c68b3a-0ac3-44aa-acb3-582dfe0c42ee/Disney.jpg\n\nFeature-length Disney animated films are a hallmark of cinematic culture, and it is strange to think that they date back to before the beginning of the second world war. As we approach 80 years of animated features from Disney, I find myself looking back at that history and noting the various high-points and missteps in an all-encompassing retrospective of Disney Animation.\n\n\nThis retrospective will seek to organize these films into distinct periods, from the very beginnings up to the present day. Though it is tempting to group the films according to artistic merit and leave it at that, it is much more informative to break them into chronological epochs, as you’ll see. For then, a funny thing happens: the chronological periods act as a stand-in for the artistic verve of the production studio at the time. Thus Disney ebbs and flows through periods of electric activity and also-ran wheel spinning, and it is informative to recognize the varying causes of such a cyclic output in light of where the Studio is today. Originally, this was intended to appear as a single piece, but as it grew it became clear that it would be much more effective broken up into seven pieces representing their respective eras. After all seven are published, I will place them together into a single piece for ease of access.\n\nSo, without further adieu, I present The Seven Ages of Disney Animation. Of course, it all begins with . . .\n\n<hr />\n\n<strong>The Age of Innovation (1937 – 1942)</strong>\n\nThe first Age of Disney I have named “The Age of Innovation” in reference to the immense innovation required of the studio to establish the feature-length animated film. The first ever film of this nature, <em>Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs</em>, was completed in 1937, and ushered in a fantastic level of artistic output that, perhaps, has not been equaled in the realm of animation ever since. The Age of Innovation comprises five films: the aforementioned <em>Snow White</em>, <em>Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo</em>, and finally <em>Bambi</em>. Each film released during this age is the very definition of a masterpiece. Timeless characters and themes abound, but the focus is definitely on the dynamic of family. Except for Fantasia, which isn’t really a single narrative, the other four stories all heavily involve relationships between parents and children. Admittedly, Snow White is a bit of a stretch in that regard, but there are still family dynamics at play, whether you look at the creation of a new family with the dwarfs, or the conflict from the jealous Queen. Regardless, here we see the establishment of the Disney pathos in its most basic form: stories driven by personal relationship, often relying on the structure of a musical.\n\nhttp://cdn-static.denofgeek.com/sites/denofgeek/files/2/43//snow-white-main.jpg\n\nThese films are all still gorgeous to look at, despite the age of the animation.<em> Snow White</em> in particular can look at little jerky at times, and the voice acting seems to be weirdly mixed by today’s standards, but you have to appreciate that a project of this scope had never been attempted before. You cannot deny the power of particular scenes from this film. The Queen telling her servant to kill Snow White seems entirely out of place by today’s standard of children's movies, and the scene where Snow White finds herself scared and lost in the woods remains quite chilling and sad. Of course, we would be remiss not to mention the musical numbers, which would become an absolute hallmark of the greatest Disney animated films ever. Looking back, while <em>Snow White</em> may seem incredibly dated from an aesthetic point of view, it nonetheless represent a leap forward in movie-making. As the progenitor of every film we will discuss – plus many fantastic films from other studios which we will not, <em>Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs</em> deserves our reverence.\n\nhttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I2dIPX2hD8o/U9G9aMzckmI/AAAAAAAABZg/K_NAEiZkQuo/s1600/pinocchio-+blue+fairy.jpg\n\nThe second film from this age, <em>Pinocchio</em>, is a morality tale with the atmospheric horror of Guilermo Del Toro drawn on animation cels 25 years before Del Toro was even born. It is at once surreal and grounded, dramatizing the struggle for honesty and goodness amid the temptation of fame and vice. The eponymous marionette is given life by the Blue Fairy, and watched after by Jiminy Cricket, although not particularly well. Pinocchio strays from the right path, and finds himself imprisoned by a giant puppetmaster, and then later is whisked away to Pleasure Island where children are turned into donkeys for sale to salt mines and circuses. Metaphors abound in this story, and it is weirdly comfortable with overt sexual innuendo and manipulation of naive children. The finale of the film has Pinocchio attempting to rescue his family from Monstro, a nightmare-inspiring demon whale that makes Moby Dick look like Free Willy. Monstro of course kills Pinocchio (who is found lying face down in a tide pool after the encounter) but the Blue Fairy resurrects him as a real boy. You know, kid’s stuff. What a movie!\n\nhttps://img.apmcdn.org/054707a6bad1e5d5a97ed25b59ee2cd5fb5ccee7/uncropped/697bad-20151029-fantasia-centaurs.jpg\n\nThe third film of this age, <em>Fantasia</em>, stands out as the only film that does not have a standard narrative structure, instead offering the artists’ interpretations of various classical pieces of music. But despite the lack of an overall story, the film deals with the idea of narrative on a very fundamental level, as the conductor introduces the audience to the different pieces. In fact, it is pointed out that two of the pieces are specifically chosen for their explicit stories: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony (The Centaurs & other Greek Myths), and the iconic <em>The Sorcerer’s Apprentice</em>. In these segments, we get to see some the ways that a composer may seek to tell a distinct story through only music, and though we are aided by the gorgeous animation, the point is deftly made. This is in contrast to some of the other segments, most notably <em>The Rite of Spring</em> by Igor Stravinksy, where the music is described as more abstract. It is made clear that what we are seeing is more the artists’ interpretation of the material than the literal intention of the composer. In this sense, <em>Fantasia</em> can be thought of as an instruction manual for the appreciation of classical music: it teaches us about theme, tone, musical composition and structure, and even narrative. It is wholly unlike anything else in the Disney canon (except <em>Fantasia 2000</em>, obviously).\n\nhttp://ksassets.timeincuk.net/wp/uploads/sites/55/2017/07/Dumbo-Flying-with-Crows-920x585.jpg\n\n<em>Dumbo</em> follows a blueprint similar to <em>Pinocchio</em>, but is much more focused on the mother-son relationship drama and dispenses somewhat with the overt surrealism (though not completely). At a mere 1 hr 4 minutes long, Dumbo was an attempt to recoup the financial losses of <em>Fantasia</em> through simplicity. Despite its short runtime, <em>Dumbo</em> manages to fit in a harrowing mother-son relationship, an investigation of loneliness and ridicule, and the importance of believing in your own abilities (plus some top-notch drunken hallucinations). While it is occasionally frowned upon for utilizing racial stereotypes in the portrayal of the crow characters, this is merely unfortunate surface-level reasoning. All crows except for the leader are voiced by members of the very popular Hall Johnson Choir, and the crows are portrayed as clever, witty, and sympathetic to Dumbo’s situation (unlike many other characters). Dumbo is not a film to apologize for, and it remains among Disney’s best.\n\nThe portrayal of family dynamics and trauma reaches its apex in the narrative of <em>Bambi</em>. There are reasons why the death of Bambi’s mother is still referenced over 70 years later – the scene where Bambi is calling for her, receiving only silence in reply, remains as haunting and sad as ever. It is important to realize how unexpected this plot element actually is, though, as it can be lost on someone not seeing it for the first time. The entirety of the first two acts are fairly playful and joyous. Bambi has his friends, plays around on the ice and in the fields, and generally has a good life. Then, as life so often does, he is completely blindsided, along with the rest of us. If the movie has a weakness, it is that the narrative doesn’t seem to have a particularly powerful place to go after such a devastating conclusion to the second act. The finale of the forest fire and Bambi escaping with his father is certainly entertaining and powerful animation, but we remember the earlier portions of this film more fondly.\n\nIt is strange to say this now, but except for <em>Snow White</em>, each of these films was considered a commercial flop during its initial release, but they have received great acclaim since then. These five films all score above 90 on Rotten Tomatoes, with the lowest score of 91 going to <em>Bambi</em>. <em>Pinocchio</em> stands out as the lone perfect score in the whole of the Disney oeuvre, although it is worth remarking that <em>Snow White</em>, <em>Fantasia</em>, and <em>Dumbo</em> each have only a single negative review on the aggregator website (what exactly those reviewers found to complain about, I refuse to investigate). Put simply, these five films are the single strongest run in the entire history of Disney, and possibly in the entire history of cinema. (At least from a single production studio’s output – I believe different arguments could be made if you focused on a five-film run from a director or actor, for instance). It is astounding that they were also the first five films in the studio’s history. There is also a distinct air of maturity to each film, as I have detailed various themes and subject matters which are rarely portrayed in children’s movies anymore (if ever). Simply put, each of these films is a masterpiece; what an incredible introduction to the world of Disney.",
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      "body": "Hey Steemits!\n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/cropped-textheaderbig1.jpg\n\n\nMy name is Derek Jacobs.  I write highly questionable things about movies on my very own website, **Plot and Theme**.  I started **Plot and Theme** in 2015 with one purpose:  produce long-form reviews and essays that explain the artistic reasons behind the choices made by filmmakers.  There are movie review sites everywhere on the internet, but I want Plot and Theme to be different.  \n\nI don't just jot down my reactions to movies, I look deeper into why I have those reactions.  What do Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams do with their performances to wrench such empathy from me in Manchester by the Sea?  How does Rodrigo Prieto (the cinematographer from Martin Scorsese’s Silence) frame a long-shot to make me feel utterly powerless – just like the characters?  Why does Tom Ford organize the structure of Nocturnal Animals in such a parallel fashion, and what effect does it have on my understanding of the story he wants to tell?\n\nThese are just some of the questions I have been confronted with while reviewing films on Plot and Theme, and I mean to keep it up.  So far, readers have appreciated this style; the number of page views and unique visitors has consistently risen since the site's inception, and the site passed 200K unique page views in June 2017!\n\nI am going to be posting some of my favorite essays and reviews here on Steemit.  If you enjoy my movie reviews and essays, please give me a follow, comment on the posts, and participate.  I look forward to discussing movies with you! \n\nhttps://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/plotandthemelogoneg.jpg",
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      "body": "![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmUdwr9BhQr32ibzRaehp5v5GqrYK3EmMUCS8dPL6rtn1G/image.png)\n\n<em>The Terminator</em> (1984) is a better film than <em>Terminator 2: Judgment Day </em>(1991).  The three other movies in the franchise are utter garbage and will not be discussed further.  And, if you’ll lower your pitchforks for long enough, this piece will provide several arguments asserting the superiority of <em>The Terminator</em>.  I’ll compare three aspects of the films and explain how <em>The Terminator</em> bests <em>Terminator 2 </em>in each:  1.) The overall plot-theme of the story, 2.) The structure, pacing, and the effectiveness of the storytelling, and 3.) The characters and their respective arcs.  I will show that the first film showcases a stronger and more original plot, streamlined structure, and more interesting characters.  After remarking on the sequel’s deserved accolades, the stark verdict will follow:  <em>Terminator 2</em> is exemplary, but <em>The Terminator </em>is the greater film.\n\nLet’s get this out of the way:  <em>Terminator 2: Judgment Day</em> (<em>T2</em> from now on) is a great film.  This piece is not meant to deride it for its failures, but to celebrate the oft-overlooked original for its myriad successes.  My interpretation of <em>T2</em> as inferior is best kept in the proper context:  it is inferior to an absolute masterpiece.  This is not D+ vs. A, it’s A vs. A+.  Like <em>Alien</em>/<em>Aliens</em> or <em>The Godfather</em>/<em>The Godfather Part II</em>, these two films offer an embarrassment of riches.  I’m simply going to bat for <em>The Terminator.</em>\n\n<strong>Part I:  The Plot-Theme</strong>\n\n<em>The Terminator</em> boasts a fascinating science fiction plot that was entirely novel at the time of its inception.  Its genius is the combination of two ideas:  Dominant Artificial Intelligence, and Time Travel.   Separately, these ideas date back to the 1920s and the 1880s, respectively.  Artificial intelligence and robot rebellions first appeared in fiction in Karel Čapek’s play <em>R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), </em>and early time travel is represented by stories like \"The Clock That Went Backward\" by Edward Page Mitchell and soon thereafter by writers like Mark Twain (<em>A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court</em>) and H.G. Wells (<em>The Chronic Argonaut</em> and <em>The Time Machine</em>).  From my cursory research, <em>The Terminator</em> is the first instance of an A.I. using time travel to prevent its own destruction in the future.  A 1957 science fiction short story by Harlan Ellison called <em>Soldier From Tomorrow</em> is close, though.  In this story a soldier from the future travels back through time in an attempt to prevent an apocalypse, but the warring factions are both human – not humans vs. an A.I.\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/1938_bbc_rur_tv_c1.jpg) \n>A scene from the play <em>R.U.R., </em>the first story about a robot uprising.  The play also coined the term \"robots\" (though, these are not mechanical beings like cyborgs - they're closer to clones).  And yes, I have seen <em>The World's End</em>.\n\nThe plot itself is ingenious, a classic reluctant hero story where the protagonist assumes sovereignty over an extraordinary situation.  <em>The Terminator </em>chooses a female lead for this story, and keeps the construction simple.  Machines from the future send a killing machine to assassinate Sarah Connor before she can give birth to the savior of humanity.  In response, the humans send back Kyle Reese, a protector to foil this Terminator.  The resulting story is essentially a monster movie, with a seemingly invincible evil in pursuit of the protagonists who are under-equipped, constantly in danger, and have the odds stacked against them.\n\n<em>T2</em> is the same thing, only a second time and less interesting.  Observe:\n\n<em>The Terminator</em> opens in a dystopian future where human skulls litter the ground, gigantic Hunter-Killers fire pink lasers at rag-tag group of soldiers, and the premise is introduced via text card.  In the present, there’s a shot of a garbage truck, swirling papers, and electricity before the T-800 arrives naked and beats up folk for clothes.  Kyle Reese arrives, equips himself after a run-in with the police, and begins the search for Sarah Connor.  Sarah is introduced as a sad-sack.  The Terminator, Kyle, and Sarah cross paths at the crowded Tech Noir nightclub, where Reese prevents the T-800 from killing Sarah in a firefight that ends when the T-800 flies through a glass window.  Reese and Sarah escape from the T-800, Reese delivers exposition during a car chase, and the two hide in a parking garage while more exposition happens.  They are pursued again, run, and are taken into police custody.  There, the T-800 breaks into the jail and attempts to kill Sarah, but they escape.  The two hole up in a hotel, make some bombs, and grow closer together.  The T-800 finds them, and a final chase scene ends in the “complete destruction” of the T-800 via the crashing of a semi truck, except not.  The wounded protagonists lead the T-800 through an industrial factory that shares a quality with the Terminator (mechanical metal) and eventually destroy it, though Kyle Reese dies.  Sarah prepares for the future, pregnant with John by Kyle, and the film ends with her driving off into the distance, wary of the oncoming storm.\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/the-terminator-1.jpg)\n> Nice plot there, <em>The Terminator.  </em>It would be a shame if someone <em>repurposed it for the sequel!  ---     </em>James Cameron, circa 1990, probably.\n\n<em>T2</em> opens in a dystopian future where human skulls litter the ground, gigantic Hunter-Killers fire pink lasers and T800 chassis attack a rag-tag group of soldiers, and the premise is introduced via voice-over.  In the present, there’s a shot of a garbage truck, swirling papers, and electricity before the T-800 arrives naked and beats up some folks for clothes.  The T-1000 arrives, equips himself after a run-in with the police, and begins the search for John Connor.  John and Sarah are introduced as assholes.  The robots and John cross paths at the crowded galleria, where the T-800 prevents the T-1000 from killing John in a firefight that ends when the T-800 flies through a glass window.  John and the T-800 escape from the T-1000, the T-800 exposits after John demands they park, and the two hide in a parking lot while more exposition happens.  They travel to find Sarah in the hospital.  There, the T-1000 infiltrates the hospital and attempts to kill Sarah, but they escape.  The three hole up at a weapons cache, collect some weapons, and grow closer together.  Sarah attempts to murder Myles Dyson, then the group decides that destroying Cyberdyne could prevent Judgment Day.  They destroy the data and the building, but the T-1000 finds them, and a final chase scene ends in the “complete destruction” of the T-1000 via the crashing of a semi truck, except not.  The wounded protagonists lead the T-1000 through an industrial factory that shares a quality with the Terminator (liquid metal) and eventually destroy it, though the T-800 is badly damaged and chooses to die.  Sarah prepares for the future, delivers voice over musings about Judgment Day, machines learning to be human, and hope.\n\nIs this a little reductive?  And how!  But the general plot points detailed above are merely the major events of each story.  There are perhaps a dozen more smaller similarities between the two films:  Terminators pretending to be humans over the phone, persons with knowledge of the future screaming at Dr. Silberman while being recorded, Terminators pursuing on motorcycles, Sarah’s thigh catching a bullet/shrapnel, and various phrases from “Get Out” to “I’ll be Back”.   James Cameron wrote a brilliant, taut science fiction horror film in <em>The Terminator</em>, and made the film for $6.4 million, struggling all the way.  Then, he took the same ideas and made a bombastic action movie in <em>T2</em> for $102 million.  It’s not complicated – once he had the street cred and the money, he did his old idea, but bigger.\n\n“Simpsons Did It” is not an airtight argument for the superiority of <em>The Terminator</em>; a re-tread can end up being better.  But two central changes actually make the plot worse:  replacing the human Kyle Reese with a reprogrammed T-800 (rT-800, for clarity’s sake because there's also an evil T-800), and providing a focused purpose for the protagonists beyond simply running (destroying Cyberdyne and thus preventing Skynet/Judgment Day).  Both choices make <em>T2</em> weaker, the first by reducing the stakes and revoking the depth of the character, and the second by losing the focus of the story and drawing far too much attention to the elephant in the room:  time-travel paradoxes.\n\nWe’ll get much more into this in <strong>Part III</strong>, but Kyle Reese’s humanity makes him a fundamentally more interesting character than the rT-800.  Reese vs. the T-800 is an uphill battle.  After Sarah bites Reese, he immediately conveys his vulnerability and the Terminator’s invulnerability:  “Machines don’t feel pain; I do”.  Sarah’s question confirms the technological superiority of the T-800:  “Can you stop it?” “Maybe.  With these weapons . . . I don’t know.”  Taken together, these lines of dialogue establish the stakes beautifully:  Kyle and Sarah are fragile, and their hunter is formidable.\n\nIn comparison, the rT-800 vs the T-1000 conflict is boring.  Consider the opening salvo, which consists of the rT-800 protecting John from a volley of bullets, fist-fighting with the T-1000, and then rescuing John from the semi-truck in the canals.  Thought the pacing is astounding, the actual stakes flat-line immediately.  The rT-800 takes bullets without consequence, and the T-1000 does the same.  The fight in the department store does little to either.  An exploding semi-truck inflicts zero damage!  Though the machines accumulate some wear over the course of the film, there is a nagging feeling that <em>T2</em> boils down to two bumper cars banging into each other until one falls into a pool of molten steel.\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/terminator-2-arnold-schwarzenegger.jpg)\n> Here's our hero in <em>T2</em>, completely equipping himself with clothes, weapons, a vehicle, and a sweet pair of shades - all without breaking a sweat.\n\nThe assault on Miles Dyson and Cyberdyne is interesting, but damages the simplicity of the story.  The choice to include these plot points in the story irrevocably draws attention to the paradox inherent with time travel.  You know exactly what I mean:  if they prevent Skynet from existing, then it won’t send a Terminator back in time in the first place so they will have no reason to interfere with Skynet so <em>it will exist</em> and send a Terminator back in time and etc, etc.  The best time travel stories pull this off either by embracing the absurdity or <em>not drawing needless attention to it</em>.  The original film takes it at face value and only allows the protagonists to defend against Skynet’s attempted alterations.  The sequel allows Sarah and the gang to mess with everything, befuddling the causality.\n\nOh, and this entire plot element was stolen from <em>The Terminator </em>anyway.\n\nThat’s right – deleted scenes from <em>The Terminator</em> include:  1.)  Sarah Connor looking up Cyberdyne and planning on destroying it back in 1984, and 2.) A revelation that the factory at the end of the first film <em>is</em> <em>Cyberdyne!</em>  Obviously, these are deleted scenes and so are not actually canon to the story, but pointing out that the one innovative plot idea in <em>T2</em> originated from <em>The Terminator</em> further cements the novelty of the original.\n\nThematically, the films are similar, but this is where <em>T2</em> deserves a praise for being different in an interesting way.  Each film deals with the science fiction ideas we’ve discussed before.  But, by choosing to make the rT-800 a protagonist, the sequel also delves into ideas about a machine learning to become more human (and, as a reverse-parallel, Sarah learning to become more machine-like).  These are fascinating ideas, but they aren’t worth the unintended consequences of replacing Kyle Reese with a machine, and they aren’t handled too well in <em>T2</em> anyway.  The increased stakes, tension, and humanity that buds from Kyle and Sarah’s romance is preferable to philosophizing over a more-human Terminator (more on this in <strong>Part III</strong>).\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/thumbs-up.jpg)\n> An amazing pay-off to the rT-800 story - but is it worth the previous 120 minutes of lackluster invulnerability?\n\nTherefore, from the perspective of the plot-theme, <em>The Terminator</em> is more innovative, more imaginative, and more focused.  <em>T2</em> re-visits many of the same points, and most of its novelties are also cribbed from <em>The Terminator</em> in some way.  Thematically, the films are similar, with a few tweaks in the precise emotional resonance.  At the end of the day, the plot of <em>T2</em> is a re-tread of the best elements of <em>The Terminator</em>, but done worse.  This will be further developed once we delve into the actual organization and execution of each story.\n\n<strong>Part II:  Story Structure, Pacing, and Execution</strong>\n\n<em>T2 </em>not only recycles the basic story of its predecessor, but does so with worse execution.  The original sports a stronger story structure, focus, and pacing than the sequel, and does so through more robust cinematic techniques.  As in <strong>Part I</strong>, I’ll detail the strengths of the original and then compare them to the missteps made by <em>T2</em>, most of which are the result of bogging down the story with unneeded complexity and hackneyed exposition delivered through voice-over.  Again, the conclusion is apparent:  the taut, science fiction/horror of <em>The Terminator</em> outperforms the unfocused sprawl of <em>T2</em>, this time from the standpoint of story structure and cinematic technique.\n\nStructurally, these are both chase films in a science fiction mold, though the original is more horror and the sequel is more action.  This slight genre distinction reveals what’s going on under the hood of these movies, and allows us to make sense of some of the choices that James Cameron made on each.  We’ll see that the streamlined focus of <em>The Terminator</em> is a consequence of its desire to express horror elements with laconic precision, and the bombastic bloat of <em>T2</em> is the result of hitting action beats at regular intervals.\n\nIn order to keep the horror forward in the story, <em>The Terminator</em> demanded focus.  Cameron himself attests to this in interviews and the audio commentary.  Notice that only one of the three Sarah Connors is killed by the T-800 on screen.  There is a scene where the second one is killed, but Cameron felt this delayed the confrontation between Reese, Sarah, and the T-800 for too long.  Cameron also never lets too much time elapse without showing the T-800.  This keeps the T-800 firmly in our mind, as though Reese and Sarah are only a step ahead of him.  Entire subplots (like the trip to Cyberdyne) are excised in order to keep this frenetic chase flowing, and the film is much stronger for it.\n\nBy contrast, <em>T2</em> has no such qualms about diverting its focus, because there will always be the next gigantic action set piece to snap everyone back to attention.  Compared to the break-neck pace of the original, <em>T2</em> positively <em>drags</em> for a few stretches, most notably after the escape from the hospital but before Sarah goes to assassinate Dyson.  There’s also less focus on the antagonist – the T1000 disappears from the movie for 33 minutes, and isn’t actively interacting with the protagonists for a full 40 minutes (from falling off the car after the hospital escape, to the commandeering of the helicopter).  The action scenes are some of the best ever put to film, but it feels like we’re waiting around for something meaningful to happen, especially since so much of the Terminator gunplay is inconsequential.  It feels less unified, and is propped up by exemplary action sequences and visual effects.\n\nAnd though <em>T2</em> can stand up to <em>The Terminator</em> in the context of an action film, it is completely eclipsed by the original when it comes to storytelling.  Some of these gripes may feel nitpicky, but many of them are indicative of the larger problem that we’ve detailed above.  The very first shot of each movie typifies my major complaint:  <em>The Terminator</em> uses a text screen to introduce the world; <em>T2</em> uses a Sarah Connor voice-over.  <em>The Terminator</em> never requires such blatant and lazy exposition again, and since it is the opening of the film, it is forgiven.  Whenever it has to deliver exposition, Cameron stages it during a car chase, or when hiding from the T-800.  The exposition flows with the pace of the story; it almost passes by without you noticing.\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/terminator5.jpg)\n> The initial exposition comes from Reese while they are being chased by The Terminator.  It absolutely flies by you, teaching you everything you need to know.\n\nBy contrast, <em>T2</em> goes back to the Sarah Connor voice-over ad nauseam, and it’s an infuriating stylistic and tonal departure from the rest of the film.  In the desert, she drones that “this machine” may be the best father John has ever had, which is just as easily conveyed by her gaze at them playing.  She later explains how Miles Dyson is feeling about the Skynet future, though that’s obvious from Dyson’s affect.  On the way to Cyberdyne, she talks about how they are re-writing the future and taking initiative – all things we’ve just watched the characters discuss.  At the end of the film, over the visual metaphor of a dark highway road, she narrates the major themes of the film in a more hackneyed and rote delivery than even a foolish critic could accomplish in a piece like this (see above).  It is <em>absolutely</em> <em>terrible</em>.  It’s Harrison Ford in <em>Blade Runner</em> bad, the only difference is that it happens less often.  It would not surprise me if its inclusion was a studio note; you could excise it entirely and the film would be better.\n\nYou can disagree with my contention that <em>T2</em> lifts the majority of its plot (if not the whole thing) from <em>The Terminator</em>, especially if you're a detail-oriented person that interprets all of this “borrowing” as a subversion of the some of the tropes of the original.  You can enjoy the pacing of <em>T2</em>, claiming that the movie needs a bit of a slowdown in the middle to catch its breath (though I’d argue it is bad policy to disappear your main villain for 1/3 of your film’s running time).  What you can’t argue against (at least not on sure footing) is that some of the storytelling methods in <em>T2</em> are embarrassing when compared to the streamlined cinematic simplicity of the original.  <em>The Terminator</em> triumphs in both story and structure, so we’ll move on to the aspect in which it is most-superior to <em>T2</em>:  the characters and their story arcs.\n\n<strong>Part III:  Characters and Arcs</strong>\n\nIn both <em>The Terminator </em>and <em>T2</em>, there are four main characters:  Sarah, John (or the idea of him), the “good” time traveler, and the Skynet time traveler.  In <strong>Part III</strong>, we’ll compare these characters between films:  Sarah vs. Sarah, zygote John Connor vs. ten-year-old John Connor, Kyle Reese vs. the rT-800, and the T-800 vs. the T-1000.  Analyzing these four characters in pairs and comparing them across films suggests that the characters in <em>The Terminator</em> are more complex, more interesting, and have more satisfying arcs than their <em>T2 </em>counterparts.\n\nThe character of Sarah Connor is one of the greatest science fiction protagonists in the history of the genre.  In <em>The Terminator</em>, she begins her story as a sad-sack waitress in Los Angeles, completely unprepared for the horrors that are about to confront her.  She’s something of an everywoman, a girl-next-door with a vulnerability that masks her strength.  Once confronted by the Kyle Reese and the T-800, the trials transform her from a wide-eyed damsel into an efficacious fighter, culminating with her destruction of the T-800 in the hydraulic press.  This arc isn’t particularly novel, but since Sarah is the audience proxy in the story, it guarantees that we will empathize with her and celebrate her journey.  Along the way, she is also a tender companion to Reese, saddened by the bleakness of his world and falling in love with him for his heroism and innocence.  Their romance pulls a lot of dramatic weight in the film.  It is perfectly developed, earned, and paid off when Reese is killed and Sarah discovers she is pregnant with John by Reese and the first event of the future is revealed in the picture that Reese uses to memorize her face.\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/terminator3.png)\n>  Badass Sarah Connor at the end of <em>The Terminator</em>.  Her voice-over is delivered into a recorder, which makes it not hammy.  She has also traded her iguana for a dog, because dogs can smell Terminators, just in case another comes for her.\n\nIn <em>T2</em>, Sarah Connor begins the story at the logical endpoint of the transformation that began in <em>The Terminator</em>.  She has embraced her charge to train John into a future general, but lost most of her humanity in the process.  As a result, she is hard, harsh, and flat.  The most interesting aspect to her arc is her flirtation with becoming the very monster she is attempting to destroy.  In the sequence where she attacks Dyson, she is dressed in all-black, emotionless, and machine-like.  She pulls back before actually killing him, but then her emotional journey stops.  <em>T2</em> Sarah is capable and awesome; some of the coolest stuff in the film is Sarah escaping from the hospital.  But because of this, there isn’t much room for her character to grow.  <em>T1 </em>Sarah rose from normalcy into a bona fide hero; <em>T2 </em>Sarah starts as a morose badass and ends as a slightly less morose badass.  It’s just less interesting.\n\nOne could expect that the hero’s journey of <em>T2</em> would pass on to John Connor, but that is not the case.  John is a frustrating asshole in this movie, and the performance by Edward Furlong is the most glaring weakness of the entire film.  It does not help that <em>T2</em> was Furlong’s debut, or that he is obviously in the middle of puberty.  His voice changes throughout the film, despite being altered in post-production in an attempt at consistency.  John Connor was better in <em>The Terminator</em> when he was nothing more than a twinkle in Sarah’s eye.  I understand that Furlong was a child, but we’re not grading on a curve here.\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/terminator8.jpg)\n> Meet John Connor, savior of humanity and the absolute worst part of an Action/Sci-Fi masterpiece.  He's also supposed to be about 9 years old here (<em>T2</em> is set in 1995, 10 years after the events of <em>The Terminator, </em>though the film itself was released in 1991).\n\nIt doesn’t help that John Connor is boring.  Every talent that he has at the beginning of the film suits the challenges he will face.  He can steal money (and later keys – I’m sure the ATM and the key vault at a tech company have the exact same platform), drive, load weapons, fix engines, and even field-dress injuries. The closest thing to an “arc” he has is his relationship with the rT-800, which barely counts because after all the exposition, he is 100% on board.  The prickly relationship he has with his mother is more interesting, but this is cast by the wayside in favor of an emotional payoff with the T-800 thumbs-up at the end.\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/terminator4.jpg) \n> Kyle Reese, solider from the future and all-around heartthrob.  He knows his way around a sawed-off shotgun and has an old family recipe for pipe bombs.\n\nAs cool as that is, <em>The Terminator</em>’s Kyle Reese is infinitely more interesting as a protagonist than <em>T2</em>’s rT-800.  Reese’s vulnerability and humanity when compared to the rT-800 was mentioned previously, but this single attribute permeates each character and drastically favors Reese.  He arrives in 1985 naked, lands awkwardly, and writhes in pain.  This immediately casts him as the underdog, especially since the T-800 has already murdered people for clothes.  Then, as Reese begins collecting himself, we see that he is a practiced soldier.  The way he crawls quickly through the department store to avoid the police reveals his almost preternatural feel for navigating combat situations, and his acquisition and preparation of the policeman’s shotgun shows that he is resourceful.  As the story develops, it is easy to empathize with Reese’s harsh experiences and admire his courage and heroism for taking this one-way trip through time.  Kyle Reese’s humanity resonates throughout his character.  His life has been a constant struggle for survival, which imparts a great strength on the character and garners respect from the audience.\n\nBy contrast, the rT-800 is an unstoppable killing machine turned buddy.\n\nSnooze.  The rT-800 is programmed from the onset with everything he needs to succeed in his mission, including his motivation to care about John Connor.  His arrival is the opposite of Reese’s.  He’s almost stoic, feels no pain, and effortlessly acquires clothes, weapons, and vehicles through dominant force.  His back story is a one-line throwaway.  He only learns how to get keys and what crying means – not what I would call an impressive arc.  You can argue that the rT-800 “learning to be more human” is interesting, but <em>does he really</em>?  It’s entirely superficial.  He’s programmed to protect John.  He agrees not to kill people because John orders him not to.  He sacrifices himself in deference to the mission of destroying evidence of Skynet.  So, where’s the humanity?  Where is the volition?  I like the concept of a machine becoming human, but <em>T2 </em>is no <em>Ex Machina</em>.  As an intriguing protagonist, the rT-800 pales in comparison to Kyle Reese.\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/terminatorsarrive.png) \n> Kyle lands like an idiot, and it hurts.  The rT-800 (middle) looks like he's in the middle of a prayer or something.  The bad guy (right) is sure-footed, powerful, and foreboding.  Using only images, <em>The Terminator</em> establishes Reese as a huge underdog.  In <em>T2</em>, we don't even <em>see</em> the T-1000 arrive, and the hero is already a powerful force.  Snooze again.\n\nFinally, we can compare the emissaries of Skynet:  the T-800 and the T-1000.  This comparison is the least illuminating, because these characters are the same.  Both have fewer than a dozen lines of dialogue, doggedly pursue the protagonists, and are nigh unkillable.  The T-800 is more bulky and physically imposing, whereas the T-1000 is more stealthy, like an everyman who blends into any crowd.  Regardless, they are both solid villains, if a little shallow as actual characters.  That’s to be expected, though:  they’re machines.  They should have a rigid, mechanical feel to them.  The villains are probably the one aspect that is most uniform between the two films, and one of the comparisons that doesn’t favor <em>The Terminator </em>outright.\n\n<strong>Part IV: <em>T2</em> Accolades and Conclusion</strong>\n\nI can hear the <em>T2 </em>fans already:  “but you’re ignoring all the stuff that <em>T2 </em>does so well:  the special effects, the action, and its commercial and critical success/influence!”  My counter-argument:  <em>The Terminator</em> does all of these things admirably, and sometimes <em>better</em> than <em>T2</em>.\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/terminator7.jpg) \n> One of the many absurdly awesome CGI special effects from <em>T2.</em>\n\nThe special effects in <em>T2</em> are impressive.  I absolutely love them.  They were eye-popping upon inception, and stand up to this day.  This is not always true for <em>The Terminator</em>, especially for specific effects like the animatronic Arnold head and some of the stop-motion endoskeleton.  Still, <em>The Terminator</em> is a cornucopia of practical effects.  On a shoe-string budget, Cameron and crew use every trick in the book.  The future sequences with the Hunter-Killers are all miniatures with matte painting backgrounds, <em>sometimes with forced perspective</em>!  The endoskeleton is also a grab-bag of effects:  stop-motion, puppetry, and animatronics.  The final shot of the T-800, with his crushed red eye dimming out amid a curl of smoke is some next-level guerilla practical effects, conceived the day of and on-set:  it’s a red light, Styrofoam spray-painted silver, aluminum foil, and a stage-hand blowing cigarette smoke through it.  The truck explosion?  One-sixth miniature, all in-camera and real, practical explosions.\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/the-terminator-13-large1.jpg) \n> Build your own crushed T-800 head from these five household items!  <strong>#3 will amaze you!</strong>\n\nIt’s certain that the special effects of <em>T2</em> look better than the special effects of <em>The Terminator</em>.  It’s also certain that 1991 came after 1984, and that $102 million is more than $6.4 million.  <em>T2</em> impresses me with its innovation and cutting-edge application of nascent CGI technology;  <em>The Terminator</em> impresses me with its flawless execution of practical effects and shoestring style.  <em>T2</em> obviously looks better, but practical wizardry of <em>The Terminator </em>should not be discounted.\n\n![](https://plotandtheme.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/terminator9.png) \n> This is from <em>The Terminator</em>.  The foreground skull is normal sized, the midground skulls are about an inch wide, the Hunter Killer is a miniature, and the background is a matte painting.  <strong>All the tricks in the book.</strong>\n\nAs for the commercial and critical reception, <em>T2</em> doesn’t have a leg to stand on unless you only focus on the raw cumes.\n\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"204\"></td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"180\"><strong><em>The Terminator</em></strong></td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"240\"><strong><em>Terminator 2: Judgment Day</em></strong></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"204\">Budget</td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"180\">$6.4 Million</td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"240\">$102 Million</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"204\">Worldwide Box Office</td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"180\">$78.3 Million</td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"240\">$519.8 Million</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"204\">Return on Investment</td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"180\">12.2x</td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"240\">5.1x</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"204\">Rotten Tomatoes Score</td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"180\">100% (56 reviews)</td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"240\">93% (68 reviews)</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"204\">Metacritic Score</td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"180\">83/100</td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\" width=\"240\">75/100</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\n\nOther than overall net profits (roughly $418 million vs. $72 million), <em>T2</em> actually under-performed <em>The Terminator </em>in all of these metrics.  <em>The Terminator</em> enjoyed a higher return on the investment and better responses from critics on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.  Plus I like it more, which should be all you need to know.\n\nI’ve focused my sight on the failures of <em>T2</em>,but the film obviously deserves accolades and recognition.  It’s one of the greatest action flicks ever.  But, the only aspects of the film that are legitimately greater than <em>The Terminator</em> are the visual effects and the action, though I think it is reasonable to prefer the practical effects and horror story <em>more</em> than the CGI and the action story.  Also, given a budget that was about 17x greater than the original and a much-improved technological landscape, improved visuals should be expected.  Elsewhere, <em>Terminator 2:  Judgment Day</em> simply recycles plot with less focus, neuters great characters, and tries to make up for it with great action set pieces.\n\nEvery other cinematic quality is executed more effectively in <em>The Terminator</em>.  The plot-theme is innovative, focused, and fascinating.  The structure and pacing are entirely in service of the genre and how Cameron wants to tell his story.  The characters are complex, nuanced, and fragile, making their successes more resounding and their failures more resonant.  And even the oft-maligned visual effects compare favorably to the sequel, especially in the context of a minuscule budget.  The conclusion is resounding:  <em>The Terminator</em> is the superior film.",
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      "title": "Why \"The Terminator\" (1984) is the Greatest Terminator Film"
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