Constellations – serie

Ex Machina (2014) impressed critics and audiences alike with its bold ideas and all-too-realistic depiction of the unexpected consequences of constructing a sentient being. In his feature directorial debut, Alex Garland uses efficient storytelling, a compelling narrative, and heady concepts to create a modern science fiction masterpiece that explores gender, scientific advancement, and the very concept of humanity, all in a compelling, suspenseful film. Artificial intelligence has long been a sci-fi staple, but here, Garland posits what would happen if, for once, humans, rather than AI, were the real villains. In exploring Ex Machina’s ideas about consciousness, embodiment, and masculinity, all through the lens of a misogynist mad scientist, Joshua Grimm argues the result is a fascinating, truly unique film that immediately established Garland as a breakout voice in the landscape of science fiction film.

The makers of Brainstorm (1983) spent more than a decade transferring the revolutionary concept of an “empathy machine” from page to screen, only for the famously troubled production to be met with critical and commercial indifference on release. But since 1984 the film has continued to inspire viewers to imagine possibilities for the future. As a result, Brainstorm now seems less like a fixed piece of film history than an idea in evolution. The screen story embodies the ambitions of sci-fi cinema going back to the 1950s, as well as the turbulent culture of the western world in the 1960s and 1970s. It also foreshadows technological breakthroughs around the turn of the twenty-first century, making the film startlingly relevant to our digitally-enhanced information age. To fully appreciate the film’s “ultimate experience,” it helps to understand exactly how the film evolved. This book aims to provide context for such an understanding, beginning with a brief history of science fiction cinema and setting up a careful consideration of multiple drafts of the Brainstorm screenplay by three different screenwriters: Bruce Joel Rubin, Philip F. Messina, and Robert Stitzel. It will also briefly examine the production history of the film (including the tragic death of star Natalie Wood), the career of the director and special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull, the particulars of the completed film, and the film’s influence on future storytellers like James Cameron.

Jurassic Park (1993) is one of Steven Spielberg’s most beloved films. Over twenty-five years on from its original release, it has accrued four sequels, a legion of worldwide fans, and a wide range of merchandise covering everything from action figures and board games to comic books and video games. As such, the film is widely acknowledged as one of the most significant blockbusters of the 1990s, a position underlined by its pioneering use of CGI to resurrect the dinosaurs with more realism than ever before. However, there's much more to Jurassic Park than a simple special effects extravaganza. Spielberg’s career was in flux at the time of the film's release, and this contribution to the Constellations series explores this shift by analyzing the film in a number of ways. First, it considers how Spielberg blends science fiction and horror, and how the mix of those two genres affects the film and its message. Then it looks at what the film has to say about humanity's relationship with nature, its commentary on the bond between an audience and the fantasy of cinema, and, finally, its thoughts on the manifestation of violence and control in men. It does this through close analysis of key characters, story points, and scenes, and the film's place within the context of Spielberg's career as a whole.

Few filmmakers could even attempt the fearlessness of Andrei Tarkovsky’s cinema and his most ambitious work, Stalker (1977), is arguably the most thoughtful science-fiction film ever made. Stalker parallels its speculative elements with a harrowing narrative of human fragility and philosophy. It is as much a movie about the complexity of its characters as it is the mysteriousness of its labyrinthine landscape, the ambiguous Zone and its heart, the Room of Desire. It is at once a darkly nihilistic film, ominous and threatening, and yet also profoundly hopeful and at its core a story of true faith. This book attempts to unravel the film’s complexities, from its difficult production and through its many cinematic elements: its composition and cinematography, the many philosophies it engages with, its poetic and literary influences, along with the cultural and historical landscapes that cultivated it, and the enormity of its influence across the following generations. Stalker challenges us to engage with film in a different way: a poetic cinema that asks much more of you as a viewer than most. Most of all, to explore why this film—even forty years since its original release—still affects us as an audience as profoundly as ever.

Charting new territory in filmmaking technologies and Steven Spielberg’s oeuvre, MinorityReport (2002) portrays a dystopian near-future that comments on our increasingly science-fictional world and pays homage to the history of SF cinema. In this comprehensive monograph, D. Harlan Wilson recounts the film's inception, production, reception, and afterlife since its release in 2002 while depicting it as a symptom of contemporary media pathology, post-9/11 paranoia, consumer-capitalist aggression, religious mania, and above all, the screen culture that has come to define the human condition. At the same time, Wilson explores the many self-reflexive flourishes that render the movie a commentary on Spielberg’s style and the precession of the SF genre.

One of the most acclaimed debut features of this century, Moon (2009) tells the superficially simple story of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), who mines Helium-3 on the dark side and comes face to face with his doppelgänger. Out of this scenario, director and co-writer Duncan Jones explores ethical questions that can be examined for philosophical depths, calling back to such 1970s and 1980s science fiction films as Silent Running (1972), Soylent Green (1973), Logan's Run (1976), Alien (1979), and Outland (1981). Just as the moon so often visible above Earth has been interpreted in a variety of ways throughout human history, so the film Moon is open to various readings and interpretations.Brian Robb’s Constellation volume begins by covering the early filmmaking and influences of director Jones, and briefly look at past depictions of the moon in science fiction cinema. He goes on to provide a production history of the film, with a particular focus on how the constraints of British low-budget filmmaking inspire creativity, and how the creative team envisioned the future. Subsequent chapters examine questions of isolation and identity as raised in Moon – what defines a human being? How does differing experience change each of the Sam Bell clones? – and issues of theology by examining notions of curiosity and investigation. Finally, the critical reception of Moon is will be examined, with a consideration of the way film's themes were further developed and extrapolated upon in Duncan Jones' next film,Source Code (2011).

One of the most acclaimed debut features of this century, Moon (2009) tells the superficially simple story of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), who mines Helium-3 on the dark side and comes face to face with his doppelgänger. Out of this scenario, director and co-writer Duncan Jones explores ethical questions that can be examined for philosophical depths, calling back to such 1970s and 1980s science fiction films as Silent Running (1972), Soylent Green (1973), Logan's Run (1976), Alien (1979), and Outland (1981). Just as the moon so often visible above Earth has been interpreted in a variety of ways throughout human history, so the film Moon is open to various readings and interpretations.Brian Robb’s Constellation volume begins by covering the early filmmaking and influences of director Jones, and briefly look at past depictions of the moon in science fiction cinema. He goes on to provide a production history of the film, with a particular focus on how the constraints of British low-budget filmmaking inspire creativity, and how the creative team envisioned the future. Subsequent chapters examine questions of isolation and identity as raised in Moon – what defines a human being? How does differing experience change each of the Sam Bell clones? – and issues of theology by examining notions of curiosity and investigation. Finally, the critical reception of Moon is will be examined, with a consideration of the way film's themes were further developed and extrapolated upon in Duncan Jones' next film,Source Code (2011).

William Klein’s Mr. Freedom (1969) is one of the most important American satirical films ever produced, the tale of an American superhero with disastrously misguided priorities. Although it was made in France and with a largely French cast, Klein was an American expatriate, and the film’s primary topic is American culture. That it is still so largely unseen seems to have something to do with a view of it as being, in the words of critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, “conceivably the most anti-American movie ever made”.In his contribution to the Constellations series, Tyler Sage argues that to call Mr. Freedom “anti-American” is to misunderstand not only the film but the satirical tradition of American arts and letters from which it descends. The film is challenging, Sage asserts, not because it is unpatriotic but because it lays bare the ideological nature of American films themselves. By interweaving a startling range of topics, including the cultural conditions surrounding the Vietnam War, the foundations of the American obsessions with race and violence, and our contemporary superhero film cycle, Sage explores the ways Mr. Freedom compels the viewer to come to terms with the fact that the stories we tell ourselves can never be separated from the larger forces of history, culture and film tradition.

William Klein’s Mr. Freedom (1969) is one of the most important American satirical films ever produced, the tale of an American superhero with disastrously misguided priorities. Although it was made in France and with a largely French cast, Klein was an American expatriate, and the film’s primary topic is American culture. That it is still so largely unseen seems to have something to do with a view of it as being, in the words of critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, “conceivably the most anti-American movie ever made”.In his contribution to the Constellations series, Tyler Sage argues that to call Mr. Freedom “anti-American” is to misunderstand not only the film but the satirical tradition of American arts and letters from which it descends. The film is challenging, Sage asserts, not because it is unpatriotic but because it lays bare the ideological nature of American films themselves. By interweaving a startling range of topics, including the cultural conditions surrounding the Vietnam War, the foundations of the American obsessions with race and violence, and our contemporary superhero film cycle, Sage explores the ways Mr. Freedom compels the viewer to come to terms with the fact that the stories we tell ourselves can never be separated from the larger forces of history, culture and film tradition.

From its opening moments featuring the aftermath of a plane crash on a tropical island, the television series Lost (2004-2010) became one of the most intriguing and talked about programmes in the era of digital media. This contribution to the Constellations series is the first full-length account of Lost and explores in detail what made this series both a popular hit with critics and the public (as ‘quality’ or ‘must-see’ TV), and also a series accruing intense fan scrutiny (as cult telefantasy). Lost is discussed in terms of its generic hybridity, and in particular how it incorporates and reframes familiar tropes of science fiction in the context of a Survivor reality TV-style plot on the one hand and as a ‘mystery box’ of extremely complex hermeneutic codes and hyperdiegesis on the other. Further, it explores the ways in which Lost uses science fictional narrative approaches to the intersections between themes of gender, identity, community, science, faith and philosophic thought. The book also discusses the series’ relationship with its narrative extensions in online games, merchandise, secondary texts and paratexts. Constellations: Lost is thus an important retrospective examination of a significant television series that was also a pioneering transmedia text.

From its opening moments featuring the aftermath of a plane crash on a tropical island, the television series Lost (2004-2010) became one of the most intriguing and talked about programmes in the era of digital media. This contribution to the Constellations series is the first full-length account of Lost and explores in detail what made this series both a popular hit with critics and the public (as ‘quality’ or ‘must-see’ TV), and also a series accruing intense fan scrutiny (as cult telefantasy). Lost is discussed in terms of its generic hybridity, and in particular how it incorporates and reframes familiar tropes of science fiction in the context of a Survivor reality TV-style plot on the one hand and as a ‘mystery box’ of extremely complex hermeneutic codes and hyperdiegesis on the other. Further, it explores the ways in which Lost uses science fictional narrative approaches to the intersections between themes of gender, identity, community, science, faith and philosophic thought. The book also discusses the series’ relationship with its narrative extensions in online games, merchandise, secondary texts and paratexts. Constellations: Lost is thus an important retrospective examination of a significant television series that was also a pioneering transmedia text.

Seconds (1966) is John Frankenheimer's criminally overlooked monolith of paranoia, part science fiction, part body horror, part noir thriller cum black comedy, a film found at the intersection of the post-McCarthy mindset, European art cinema, the suburban identity nightmares of The Twilight Zone and the mid-life crises of masculinity aroused by 1960s counterculture. Arguably the bleakest mainstream Hollywood film ever made, it was famously booed at its Cannes unveiling and was a box office failure upon release. And while the film’s critical reception has gradually turned to acknowledge its significance in the scheme of American cinema, throughout the wider science fiction film community, it remains surprisingly under appreciated. This Constellation sets out to shed light on the film’s many attributes, from its stylistic significance to its political commentary, countering the critical dismissal of a film suffering from ‘personality disorder’ to suggest that, instead, Seconds turned its inner identity crisis from a vice into a virtue. In the spirit of the finest science fiction, Seconds is both emblematic of the time in which it was made and perpetually relevant to new audiences as a portent of things to come – or, for that matter, a startling reveal of the hidden here and now.

Seconds (1966) is John Frankenheimer's criminally overlooked monolith of paranoia, part science fiction, part body horror, part noir thriller cum black comedy, a film found at the intersection of the post-McCarthy mindset, European art cinema, the suburban identity nightmares of The Twilight Zone and the mid-life crises of masculinity aroused by 1960s counterculture. Arguably the bleakest mainstream Hollywood film ever made, it was famously booed at its Cannes unveiling and was a box office failure upon release. And while the film’s critical reception has gradually turned to acknowledge its significance in the scheme of American cinema, throughout the wider science fiction film community, it remains surprisingly under appreciated. This Constellation sets out to shed light on the film’s many attributes, from its stylistic significance to its political commentary, countering the critical dismissal of a film suffering from ‘personality disorder’ to suggest that, instead, Seconds turned its inner identity crisis from a vice into a virtue. In the spirit of the finest science fiction, Seconds is both emblematic of the time in which it was made and perpetually relevant to new audiences as a portent of things to come – or, for that matter, a startling reveal of the hidden here and now.

The Stepford Wives (1975) occupies an unusual position in cinematic history. As is often the case with cult texts, the film was both a box office flop and widely misunderstood on release. Intended as a feminist diatribe, it was derided by Betty Friedan, whose 1963 book The Feminine Mystique it literalised. Even Ira Levin, author of the novel from which the film was adapted, concedes he was less than enthused with the filmed version. Despite this, the term ‘Stepford wife’ has become idiolect for a particular kind of one-dimensional, upper-middle class woman who is figuratively, and to some extent literally, an automation. Indeed, one does notneed to have seen or even heard of the film or Levin’s book to be familiar with the concept. This timely study finally gives The Stepford Wives the serious scholarly attention it deserves. In doing so, the significance of the film as a socio-cultural and socio-political document in its own right is underscored. While the intention of this book is to pay homage to Bryan Forbes’ film, it goes far beyond this, locating it in the traditions of the gothic, the histories of feminism and fictional imaginings about artificial women, and the futures of social robots and AI, both real and imagined.

The Stepford Wives (1975) occupies an unusual position in cinematic history. As is often the case with cult texts, the film was both a box office flop and widely misunderstood on release. Intended as a feminist diatribe, it was derided by Betty Friedan, whose 1963 book The Feminine Mystique it literalised. Even Ira Levin, author of the novel from which the film was adapted, concedes he was less than enthused with the filmed version. Despite this, the term ‘Stepford wife’ has become idiolect for a particular kind of one-dimensional, upper-middle class woman who is figuratively, and to some extent literally, an automation. Indeed, one does notneed to have seen or even heard of the film or Levin’s book to be familiar with the concept. This timely study finally gives The Stepford Wives the serious scholarly attention it deserves. In doing so, the significance of the film as a socio-cultural and socio-political document in its own right is underscored. While the intention of this book is to pay homage to Bryan Forbes’ film, it goes far beyond this, locating it in the traditions of the gothic, the histories of feminism and fictional imaginings about artificial women, and the futures of social robots and AI, both real and imagined.

Created by the team of Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, and starring Marling in the role of Prairie Johnston, the Netflix Originals series The OA (2016–19) is a generically ambiguous, and ambitious, vehicle for exploring a variety of themes, chief among them identity, belief and the nature and construction of reality. Prairie claims that she has learned the secret of inter-dimensional travel after a near-death experience and subsequent imprisonment at the hands of a deranged scientist obsessed with that phenomenon – but is she a potentially unreliable narrator, a sincere one or, finally, a metafictional character playing a version of herself in a fictional drama?This Constellation discusses The OA’s thematic concerns in the context of the creators’ earlier collaborations and in terms of influences on it, such as the work of David Lynch, particularly the TV series Twin Peaks (1990–2017) and the films Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2006), and comparable texts such as the Netflix Originals series Sense8 (2015–18) and Maniac (2018); the writings of Jorge Luis Borges and Philip K Dick. The discussion will be supported by sources from the fields of media and social theory, including the work of Jean Baudrillard, Steven Shaviro, Jodi Dean, Mark Fisher and Shoshana Zuboff. Negative criticisms of The OA will also be addressed, such as accusations of superficiality, which will be considered alongside the themes of deception, manipulation and artificiality identifiable in The OA specifically, and in Marling and Batmanglij’s wider oeuvre.

Created by the team of Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, and starring Marling in the role of Prairie Johnston, the Netflix Originals series The OA (2016–19) is a generically ambiguous, and ambitious, vehicle for exploring a variety of themes, chief among them identity, belief and the nature and construction of reality. Prairie claims that she has learned the secret of inter-dimensional travel after a near-death experience and subsequent imprisonment at the hands of a deranged scientist obsessed with that phenomenon – but is she a potentially unreliable narrator, a sincere one or, finally, a metafictional character playing a version of herself in a fictional drama?This Constellation discusses The OA’s thematic concerns in the context of the creators’ earlier collaborations and in terms of influences on it, such as the work of David Lynch, particularly the TV series Twin Peaks (1990–2017) and the films Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2006), and comparable texts such as the Netflix Originals series Sense8 (2015–18) and Maniac (2018); the writings of Jorge Luis Borges and Philip K Dick. The discussion will be supported by sources from the fields of media and social theory, including the work of Jean Baudrillard, Steven Shaviro, Jodi Dean, Mark Fisher and Shoshana Zuboff. Negative criticisms of The OA will also be addressed, such as accusations of superficiality, which will be considered alongside the themes of deception, manipulation and artificiality identifiable in The OA specifically, and in Marling and Batmanglij’s wider oeuvre.

On its release in 1986, Aliens was an immediate commercial and critical success and consolidated writer-director James Cameron’s status as a major new Hollywood player. Reprising some of the features of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) and expanding them in a number of crucial ways, Aliens managed to reinforce the audience’s attraction to the still fairly new Alien franchise and insert into it the seeds of narrative and visual changes that would be further explored in subsequent instalments of the series.Aliens is an endlessly fascinating mixture of different genres: sci-fi, revenge movies, action, war films—and more specifically Vietnam War movies—all contribute in creating a visual experience that is dynamic and emotionally enthralling. The great care devoted to set and prop design gives the film its distinctive industrial and dirty atmosphere, while the narrative and psychological evolution of the Ripley character creates a modern and engaging heroine that would have a strong impact on genre cinema.This volume in the Constellations series examines in-depth James Cameron’s film within the context of genre studies, with a particular eye to Aliens’ nature as an example of hybrid science fiction. It provides readers with a detailed visual analysis of the film and an overview of its major themes, from its metaphorical reading of the Vietnam War to the representation of motherhood and family.

On its release in 1986, Aliens was an immediate commercial and critical success and consolidated writer-director James Cameron’s status as a major new Hollywood player. Reprising some of the features of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) and expanding them in a number of crucial ways, Aliens managed to reinforce the audience’s attraction to the still fairly new Alien franchise and insert into it the seeds of narrative and visual changes that would be further explored in subsequent instalments of the series.Aliens is an endlessly fascinating mixture of different genres: sci-fi, revenge movies, action, war films—and more specifically Vietnam War movies—all contribute in creating a visual experience that is dynamic and emotionally enthralling. The great care devoted to set and prop design gives the film its distinctive industrial and dirty atmosphere, while the narrative and psychological evolution of the Ripley character creates a modern and engaging heroine that would have a strong impact on genre cinema.This volume in the Constellations series examines in-depth James Cameron’s film within the context of genre studies, with a particular eye to Aliens’ nature as an example of hybrid science fiction. It provides readers with a detailed visual analysis of the film and an overview of its major themes, from its metaphorical reading of the Vietnam War to the representation of motherhood and family.

Charting new territory in filmmaking technologies and Steven Spielberg’s oeuvre, MinorityReport (2002) portrays a dystopian near-future that comments on our increasingly science-fictional world and pays homage to the history of SF cinema. In this comprehensive monograph, D. Harlan Wilson recounts the film's inception, production, reception, and afterlife since its release in 2002 while depicting it as a symptom of contemporary media pathology, post-9/11 paranoia, consumer-capitalist aggression, religious mania, and above all, the screen culture that has come to define the human condition. At the same time, Wilson explores the many self-reflexive flourishes that render the movie a commentary on Spielberg’s style and the precession of the SF genre.

Released ten years after the original 1954 Godzilla, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster marked a palpable change and new direction for Toho’s famous film franchise. Godzilla took on a friendlier personality as a defender of Japan, a characterisation that would carry the monster throughout the rest of the original series. The film also consolidated narrative continuity between the Godzilla series and Toho’s other special effects films, developing recurrent themes in the process. Importantly, it introduced one of Toho’s most famous creations: King Ghidorah.Situated in a context that foregrounds Japan’s post-war history and its curated images of recovery, stability, and affluence, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster can be seen as reflective of such narratives. In 1954, Godzilla stood as an embodiment of wartime devastation haunting a post-war Tokyo; in 1964, an anthropomorphised Godzilla teamed up with Rodan and Mothra to defend Japan from the alien King Ghidorah. These contrasts and changes across tone and character evoke the historical processes that were taking place in post-war Japan, the narratives of which were carefully constructed and exported in highly visible and charged events like the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.This volume in the Constellations series offers a history of the film’s production, a consideration of its place in Toho’s special effects filmography, an interpretation of its social reflections within historical contexts, an examination of its legacy, and an inspection of its localised US release.

Released ten years after the original 1954 Godzilla, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster marked a palpable change and new direction for Toho’s famous film franchise. Godzilla took on a friendlier personality as a defender of Japan, a characterisation that would carry the monster throughout the rest of the original series. The film also consolidated narrative continuity between the Godzilla series and Toho’s other special effects films, developing recurrent themes in the process. Importantly, it introduced one of Toho’s most famous creations: King Ghidorah.Situated in a context that foregrounds Japan’s post-war history and its curated images of recovery, stability, and affluence, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster can be seen as reflective of such narratives. In 1954, Godzilla stood as an embodiment of wartime devastation haunting a post-war Tokyo; in 1964, an anthropomorphised Godzilla teamed up with Rodan and Mothra to defend Japan from the alien King Ghidorah. These contrasts and changes across tone and character evoke the historical processes that were taking place in post-war Japan, the narratives of which were carefully constructed and exported in highly visible and charged events like the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.This volume in the Constellations series offers a history of the film’s production, a consideration of its place in Toho’s special effects filmography, an interpretation of its social reflections within historical contexts, an examination of its legacy, and an inspection of its localised US release.

For many, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE3K) is not so much a movie as a religious experience. On its release in 1977, CE3K virtually redefined the science fiction film, shifting it away from spaceships, laser guns, and bug-eyed monsters into a modified form of science fiction that John Wyndham once called 'logical fantasy'. What would it be like if extra-terrestrials made contact with people on Earth? How would it feel? Like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Steven Spielberg's primary inspiration, CE3K is concerned with mankind's evolution towards the stars, towards a state of transcendence. But Spielberg's vision hinges not so much on cool scientific intellect being the key to our next stage of evolution, as on the necessary development of emotional intelligence. To that end, we must regain our childlike curiosity for what lies beyond the skies, we must recover our capacity to experience wonder. Intensity of emotion is inherent to the film's meaning, and the aim of this book is to explore this in detail. Along the way it delves into the film's production history, explores Spielberg's remarkable cinematic realization of the film (including a comparison study of the three different release versions), and considers in detail how CE3K fits into the Spielberg oeuvre.

Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner is now widely recognized as an undisputed masterwork of science fiction cinema and one of the most influential films released in the last forty years. Yet on its original release it was both a critical and commercial failure, criticized for its perceived prioritizing of style over content and a narrative that did not deliver the anticipated high octane action that its star casting and large budget normally promise. How did a film that was removed from circulation within a month of its premiere come to mean so much to modern audiences and provide such a rich seam of material for film and media studies? Sean Redmond excavates the many significances of the film – its breakthrough use of special effects as a narrative tool; its revolutionary representation of the future city; its treatment of racial and sexual politics; and its unique status as a text whose meaning was fundamentally altered in its re-released Director's Cut form, then further revised in a Final Cut in 2007, and what this means in an institutional context.This volume was previously published as Studying Blade Runner in 2008.

The Damned (1963) is the most intriguing of director Joseph Losey's British "journeyman" films. A sci-fi film by a director who hated sci-fi; a Hammer production that sat on the shelf for over two years before being released with almost no publicity as the second half of a double bill. Losey was a director vocal in his dislike of depictions of physical violence, but he often made films that radiate an energy produced by a violent clash of elements. The Damned catches a series of collisions--some of them inadvertent--and traps them as if in amber. Its volatile elements include Losey the blacklisted director, Hammer the erratic British studio, Oliver Reed the 'dangerous' young actor, and radioactive children. Nick Riddle's contribution to the Constellations series concentrates on historical and cultural context, place, genre, and other themes in order to try to make sense of a fascinating, underappreciated film.

Rollerball, the Canadian-born director and producer Norman Jewison’s 1975 vision of a future dominated by anonymous corporations and their executive elite, in which all individual effort and aggressive emotions are subsumed into a horrifically violent global sport, remains critically overlooked. What little has been written deals mainly with its place within the renaissance of Anglo-American science fiction cinema in the 1970s, or focuses on the elaborately shot, still visceral to watch, game sequences, so realistic they briefly gave rise to speculation Rollerball may become an actual sport.Drawing on numerous sources, including little examined documents in the archive of the film’s screenwriter William Harrison, Andrew Nette examines the many dimensions of Rollerball’s making and reception: the way it simultaneously exhibits the aesthetics and narrative tropes of mainstream action and art-house cinema; the elaborate and painstaking process of world creation undertaken by Jewison and Harrison; and the cultural forces and debates that influenced them, including the increasing corporate power and growing violence in Western society in late 1960s and early 1970s. Nette shows how a film that was derided by many critics for its violence works as a sophisticated and disturbing portrayal of a dystopian future that anticipates numerous contemporary concerns, including "fake news" and declining literary and historical memory. The book includes an interview with Jewison on Rollerball’s influences, making, and reception.

David Lynch's Dune (1984) is the film that science fiction--and the director's most ardent fans--can neither forgive nor forget. Frank Herbert's original 1965 novel built a meticulous universe of dark majesty and justice, as wild-eyed freedom fighters and relentless authoritarians all struggled for control of the desert planet Arrakis and its mystical, life-extending "spice." After several attempts to produce a film, Italian movie mogul Dino De Laurentiis and his producer daughter Raffaella would enlist David Lynch, whose Eraserhead (1977) and The Elephant Man (1980) had already marked him out as a visionary director. What emerges out of their strange, long process is a deeply unique vision of the distant future; an eclectic bazaar of wood-turned spaceship interiors, spitting tyrants, and dream montages. Lynch's film was "steeped in an ancient primordial nastiness that has nothing to do with the sci-fi film as we currently know it," as Village Voice critic J. Hoberman put it--only with time becoming a cult classic. This book is the first long-form critical study of the film; it delves into the relationship with the novel, the rapidly changing context of early 1980s science fiction, and takes a close look at Lynch's attempt to breathe sincerity and mysticism into a blockbuster movie format that was shifting radically around him.

Mad Max (1979) is a freak picture. Too classy and well-crafted to be lumped in with low-budget Ozploitation titles, yet completely unlike other films made during the 1970s Australian New Wave, George Miller's directorial debut is a singular piece of action cinema, one that had a major cultural impact and spawned a movie icon in Max Rockatansky (played by Mel Gibson). This monograph examines the film's considerable formal qualities in detail, including Miller's theory of cinema as "visual rock 'n' roll" and his marriage of classical Hollywood editing and Soviet-style montage. George Miller is arguably the single most important filmmaker in Australia's history, bringing a commercial and artistic vision to the screen few of his compatriots have ever managed before or since. Taking in everything from the film's extremely controversial critical reception to its legacy today via a string of sequels and the creation of an entire subgenre--postapocalyptic action--the book is for film students and fans alike.

Ex Machina (2014) impressed critics and audiences alike with its bold ideas and all-too-realistic depiction of the unexpected consequences of constructing a sentient being. In his feature directorial debut, Alex Garland uses efficient storytelling, a compelling narrative, and heady concepts to create a modern science fiction masterpiece that explores gender, scientific advancement, and the very concept of humanity, all in a compelling, suspenseful film. Artificial intelligence has long been a sci-fi staple, but here, Garland posits what would happen if, for once, humans, rather than AI, were the real villains. In exploring Ex Machina’s ideas about consciousness, embodiment, and masculinity, all through the lens of a misogynist mad scientist, Joshua Grimm argues the result is a fascinating, truly unique film that immediately established Garland as a breakout voice in the landscape of science fiction film.