Science Fiction movies that break the norm?

Recently I got into a discussion with a friend about how Science Fiction has gotten stereotyped as being about the props like laser cannons, rocket ships or the impossible pseudo scientific stuff like floating cities (similar to how Harlan Ellison has complained about science fiction being stereotyped as being films like Star Wars for years, even though Star Wars is more like space fantasy than science fiction). My friend pointed me to films like Seconds (1966), which seems more like a drama than anything science fiction related, but it has a subtext and tone to it that calls to mind a science fiction story. Are there any movies that defy the stereotypes of the Science Fiction genre or have a rich subtext to them that goes beyond what people would typically associate with the genre of science fiction, without having the typical hallmarks of a science fiction film?

edited 25th Jan '16 8:32:38 AM by Prinzenick

Well, to give a recent example, The Martian very much surprised me because absolutely nobody gets killed off and the ending is completely happy.

Splice is about genetics, but it qualifies as sci-fi. Source Code qualifies too.

I suppose you obviously have things like 2001. I also think Alien is one of the better examples of Recycled In Space, for focusing more on the horror aspects than the science fiction stuff.

I personally think that good science fiction is that which strengths don't pull much from its setting or how futurey it is but through how it tells intrinsic human stories in that setting, and the scifi aspects are just a backdrop for greater themes that we've seen before in countless other genres.

If you haven't yet, you should probably go watch Blade Runner.

Harlan Ellison, while an excellent writer, does like to complain and bloviate. Star Wars is Space Opera. It doesn't purport to be science fiction, and never has.

"Simone" for instance, in science fiction. As is "Her." Those break the norm, as the norm is perceived.

So, do I understand correctly that you're looking for a movie that lives up to the name Speculative Fiction, in that it examines the impact of ideas/technology, whether on a small, personal scale or on a large, societal scale? As opposed to "action movie set in the future", or "action movie where the bad guy's a robot"?

Anyway, my go-to recommendation is Primer, possibly the most down-to-earth movie that will ever be made about time travel. The events are notoriously difficult to follow, but the funny thing is, you don't actually have to understand the events. The real point of the film is the character growth, and how the two guys who invent time travel find out the hard way that they can't handle that kind of responsibility.

Harlan Ellison is one to talk; after all his work very much spearheaded the science-fantasy generation, when it comes to aesthetics . Serious SF and space dragons are not mutually exclusive. Science fiction is, ultimately, science applied through fiction. Scientific theories played out in a fictional environment. Speculative fiction, as said above. Just because something takes place in space doesn't mean it's automatically SF, and likewise SF can very well take place in a swords 'n' sorcery scenario; just think of something like the Strugatski brothers' Hard to be a God, or Dan Simmons' Hyperion saga.

edited 26th Jan '16 8:24:53 AM by TAPETRVE

The aforementioned Blade Runner is also an example. It's got the external details of "normal" sci-fi: it's set in the future with flying cars and artificial humans. But at the same time, it's an examination of the idea of androids and artificial intelligence, and the question "At what point should an artificial human get the same right to exist as an organic human?"

Moon and 2001 are worth checking out.

edited 26th Jan '16 10:46:09 AM by Locoman

Seconding The Martian.

Seriously, when's the last time we've seen a big budged, large scale sci-fi movie like that which has no death scenes?

Even in Inception, Cobb's partner is very heavily implied to have been dragged off and killed.

Technically Inception is full of death scenes. And the death of Cobb's wife kicks off the whole plot.

But I also second The Martian. I find it to be a way more enjoyable experience that Gravity. Which wasn't bad, but so intense it's not exactly "fun" to sit through.

edited 26th Jan '16 11:51:31 AM by Tuckerscreator

The Lathe of Heaven was a novel written by Ursula K. Le Guin in 1971. There were two TV film adaptations of it: one by PBS in 1980, and a remake by A&E in 2002.

George Orr is a man whose dreams can change reality. Trouble is, he has no control over what happens, and the results are retroactive. He is treated by Dr. Haber, a psychiatrist and Well-Intentioned Extremist, who decides to exploit George's ability for his own purposes... and things go from bad to worse.

I've read the novel and seen the PBS film, and enjoyed both. Haven't seen the A&E version, though. According to that other wiki, the A&E version discards a significant portion of the plot, some minor characters, and much of the philosophical underpinnings of the book. (Which kind of defeats the purpose, since the philosophy is an important part of it.)

edited 27th Jan '16 4:26:14 PM by pwiegle

Very few sci-fi movies are actually all about aliens and laser guns. That's mostly sci-fi video games. Most of the movies are pretty down to Earth though.

Edge of Tomorrow would be my pick. First Hollywood film ever to be based on a Japanese light novel, with Tom Cruise giving his most atypical performance in decades, and Emily Blunt proving that female lead actors can carry an action film. Something Hollywood ignored til Charlize Theron pulled off the same trick in Mad Max: Fury Road.

Ex Machina's pretty good.

edited 1st Feb '16 1:48:46 PM by higherbrainpattern

Attack the Block.

I'm a fan of Looper because the concept, themes, and characters are all very strong. Some folks who are picky about the versimilitude of their time-travel stories are less impressed with it, so it depends on your preferences.

Looper is all pretty good but I feel the way it loses strength when it focus on the kid and his mom rather than the showdown between Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon Levitt.

I'd also say I ended up rooting for Old Joe because the Rainmaker seemed to be future!Hitler. If I had the chance to kill child Hitler, I would do it without remorse, regardless of it being a child.

Preventing the circumstances that led to him becoming the Rainmaker could also prevent the bad future, without involving the murder of a child.

The opposing trajectories taken by the characters of Young Joe and Old Joe is extremely well done. Young Joe begins as selfish, shortsighted, and hedonistic, contrasted with Old Joe's love for his wife. Old Joe's character takes a downward spiral as he chooses to kill innocent children on the mere chance that they might become the Rainmaker, because his love is ultimately selfish: he wants to prevent his own pain. Young Joe, as he begins to care about people other than himself, is also motivated to prevent the Rainmaker's rise but chooses to do so through self-sacrifice.

It was never about a physical showdown, but a moral one.

edited 3rd Feb '16 5:57:49 PM by Galadriel

It becomes a case of cynism vs Idealism, really.

If you're on the more idealistic end, you could have hope Young Joe's experiences will help the kid forgo his path to evil and grow up to something good for society.

If you're on the more cynical end, which would be my case, you'd say it's too big of a risk to let this child grow up on the chance Young Joe's tutelage will suffice, so putting a bullet in his head, while cold, is the best option to save mankind.

I can't agree with this. Science fiction can become stale if it neglects the basics of storytelling, such as characters. But its peculiar strength, that no other genre can offer, lies in ideas, speculating from the known to conceive something new. You can think of this as taking esoteric science, like relativity and quantum mechanics, and making them relatable at a human level.

I would say that films like Alien and the new Star Trek are science fiction in setting but the core story belongs in another genre; whilst 2001 and most earlier Star Trek films were real speculative fiction with unique ideas. Even a film like Demolition Man, imbued with action clichés, does have something to say.

Funny you should mention Demolition Man. I was watching the Nostalgia Critic's review of that the other day. He made the point that it's a much better film now than it was then, given that most of the stuff it predicted has sort of happened.

I'll second Primer, which I think is probably the most intelligent film on the subject of time travel I've seen and also because it's very low-fi.

I'll add:

• A Scanner Darkly, based of a Philip K. Dick book, which has a cloak which essentially makes you anonymous, extreme government observailence and the loss of identity an agent begins to experience.
• eXistenZ, a bio punk film with biological tech and which does the "dream within a dream" plot quite well.
• π, although the sci-fi is a small element to do with machine AI ascention, the mathematical nature of the film makes it feel very hard sci-fi.
• Memories, which has "hard" tech, and which deals with ideas like time stasis fields, completely simulated reality, turning the human body into an agent for gas, and a bit of speculative fiction on what a society dedicated to war might look like.
• Moon which is about isolation in space and corporate conspiracy. kind of like Silent Running.
• Repo Man about a super car and aliens - more on the wacky side but very enjoyable.
• Safety Not Guaranteed another lo-fi time travel film like Primer, but more about characters and conspiracy in a very lovely way.
• Solaris1972 is about a space station where weird stuff happens, but it's more a sci-fi in respect to philosophical ideas on the nature of the universe, life and death and so on (not unlike 2001). In fact I doubt a headier sci-fi exists.
• Sunshine, which has the hardness of 2001 and similarly tackles the concepts of man vs. space and our place in the universe.
• The Crazy Family, this might be a bit to tricky to find, but it's more on The Thing side of sci-fi, where the ants eating away at the family's new house supposedly instill madness and result in a battle royale. Good fun.
• The Truman Show which is again an "idea" sci-fi, namely what would happen if you built a HUGE set, with a gigantic cast and an intimate exacting script to convince someone (who spends their whole life inside) that they are in the real world? Could you control his life? Would he realize?
• The Man from Earth another "idea" sci-fi... in a room filled with professionals on biology, anthropology and history - can a man convince them that he is immortal, with nothing but words? Great immortality trope analysis.
• Waking Life another "idea" sci-fi... a man experiences a dream like state of living which he can't wake up from. Can he figure out where he is? Great philosophical discussion throughout, (which to me is really the hear of good sci-fi).
• After Life (THE 1998 FILM) about a way station between death and the afterlife. Delightfully procedural, the way-station is a sort of civil service and the film catalogs the process the way-station performs and looks at the characters that work there. What even are they?

I'll admit that some of these might verge into Speculative Fiction more than Sci-fi, but they sit on the border if they do and I think big, complex ideas are really the essence of good sci-fi anyway.

edited 6th Feb '16 3:39:05 AM by sl1m

Damn I forgot about Her, such a fine and smart movie.

But the title of the thread is strange in retrospect. It is pretty much a list of SF movies that have no superheroes and are no space operas. It is a bit vague.