Visions

I’ll tell you why nerds like me want you to give science fiction a chance. It’s true that we are obsessed with seeing epic battles comprised of spaceships, laser guns and lightsabers. It’s true that we geek out when we see what technological marvels we may have in the future. It’s true for some of us that we drool when we see women wearing body-hugging spacesuits. Yes, we like all those very much, but they’re not enough reasons for us to endure as fans of sci-fi. We endure because of sci-fi’s visions. You see, many sci fis create worlds that, while having their own rules, maintain semblances to our real world. Within such premises, then, sci fis challenge us to think of how our world may become like their worlds. They then ask us if we can do something to either ensure or prevent such thing from happening; and should we have to live in a world like theirs, they guide us on how we can survive.

In short, sci fis compel us to examine our culture’s pros and cons.

Let me use Wall-E as an example. If you look at the trailer and you believe that it’s a tale of a lonely robot trying to find the meaning of its existence in an abandoned earth, you’re only half-right. True, those kind of stories can be moving, and they can make Wall-E a very pleasing movie. And I’ll say it now: Wall-E is a crowd-pleaser because of its special effects and its choreography – they are attributes that all Pixar movies share.

But when you sit down and think about what happens in the movie – and like I said, the titular robot’s solitary living is only half the movie’s story – you will realize just how breathtakingly intelligent it is. That is so, because Wall-E is a Cliffs Notes of the greatest sci fi stories, in that it tackles all their weighty topics. It cautions us not to become too hedonistic lest we create a negative utopia (as can be read in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World). It warns us not to watch too much tv lest we become too detached from reality (that would be from Ray Bradbudy’s Fahrenheit 451). It urges us not to become too dependent on technology lest we become a bunch of lazy and unthinking individuals (see Jack Williamson’s With Folded Hands). It reminds us not to be too reliant on robots because they can be stubborn and they may harm us when we change our minds (as made known in Arthur C Clarke’s 2001 Space Odyssey). It urges us to preserve our environment, or else we may have to desert our planet. Finally, it advices us to maintain our loving and compassionate ways, because these qualities are what really bring the good in us, and that as long as we have them our world can be saved.

That Wall-E encompasses this many subject matter makes it a movie that everyone – children and adults alike – must see. We, sci fi fans, couldn’t be happier in knowing that the things we read about are coming through in a movie as respectable as this.