Science Fiction - Genre Guide

Eva Leeds
Mar 8, 2018
2 min read

Conventions of science fiction

Narrative and characters- The general narrative for most science fiction stories is the conflict between good and evil. The protagonists represent the good and they are conventionally faced with issues involving extraterrestrial life, new technology, time travel, space travel, futuristic science and alternate or parallel universes. There is usually binary opposition between the hero and the villain, the heroes likely to be human and their the villain is quite often an alien or is in someway different from the protagonist. In the end they defeat the villain, saving the world as they know it from invasion or destruction.

In Alien, Ripley is a human from earth who represents the good whereas the alien is unknown and dangerous, and therefore representing the evil.

Setting - It is typical that science fiction films and shows are set in locations such as outer space, other worlds or on a alternate version of earth, perhaps in the future or on an alternate timeline of earth. Use of wide establishing shots to display the often alien setting to the audience.

This is an establishing shot from Star Wars that converts to the audience the vast world that the narrative is taking place in.

Mise-en-scene - The costumes and probs are usually very specific to the world that the story is set in. For example, the clothes that the characters wear in Star Wars are very different to those worn by the characters in Stranger things because although they are in the same genre, they are set in very different worlds.

Iconography - Science fiction stories are often set in worlds with greater scientific advancement than our own so there are often futuristic probs such as high tech gadgets and vehicles, as well as space ships or time traveling devices. CGI and special effects are also expected in science fiction films to create creatures and settings that are believable to the audience.

The time traveling DeLoran from Back To The Future is iconic in itself and is an example of iconography in the science fiction genre.

Audience pleasures

Film theorist Alt Rickman put forward the notion that the idea of genres give the audience a set of pleasures or reasons why it appeals to them. He said that these 'pleasures' could be broken down into three distinct categories: emotional pleasures, visceral pleasures and intellectual puzzles.

These give us the opportunity to be active as consumers of media products and choose what we want to consume to serve our needs. When we apply this to the genre of science fiction, we could say that investing our time into consuming films set in far off worlds could act as a method of escape from our own lives. However, in some cases science fiction films can offer intellectual puzzles to the audience, such as raising questions about our own morals and . the state of the world that we live in. It could also offer visceral pleasures depending on the sub-genre of the film. For example, Alien provides the audience with pleanty of thrills and jump scares whilst Back to the Future, a sci-fi comedy, provides lots of laughs.