Here Comes The Sun
Mar. 7th, 2007 09:52![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
viktor_haagJames Wallis says that Boyle's new Sunshine is "the best science-fiction movie since The Matrix".
Hm.
Using The Matrix as some sort of benchmark point of comparison with regard to SF movies bothers me considerably.
Here are movies that have been released since The Matrix which I consider better movies, and also better exemplars of science-fiction than The Matrix:
• Solaris (Soderbergh's remake, admittedly)
• Code 46
• Minority Report
• 2046 (admittedly, this is a bit of a stretch as SF, but better movie certainly)
• Primer (not necessarily a flashier movie, but certainly a better example of SF)
• A Scanner Darkly
• The Fountain
• The Prestige (the science doesn't have to be up-front to be SF)
And those are just the ones that fairly leapt to mind like keener kids in the front row.
I suppose you could also want to include Vanilla Sky on the list, but it's a pale remake of Abre los ojos, which came out two years before Keanu's resuscitation vehicle. And by including that, let's chalk up three writer credits for Philip K. Dick on that list (five, if you are brave enough to include Impostor and Paycheck, which are neither better films than The Matrix, and arguably not quite as good SF either, but that last point is certainly arguable -- it's really hard to completely obscure and butcher Dick's ideas, but Georgaris' woeful adaptation of "Paycheck" certainly comes close).
Comparing Sunshine to The Matrix, and not, say, Solaris leads me to have serious doubts about whether I want to see Sunshine. And that's not good. Frankly, I want more films like Solaris or Code 46 or Scanner Darkly as exemplars of the SF genre: a genre that, primarily, seeks to invoke wonder and thoughtfulness in the audience.
What I don't want is more films like The Matrix and Serenity which, frankly, are to SF as the entire modern James Bond movie franchise is to the espionage genre.
I really hope that Sunshine isn't just another big-guns, big-explosions, big-nothing movie. I had hopes for so much more.
Hm.
Using The Matrix as some sort of benchmark point of comparison with regard to SF movies bothers me considerably.
Here are movies that have been released since The Matrix which I consider better movies, and also better exemplars of science-fiction than The Matrix:
• Solaris (Soderbergh's remake, admittedly)
• Code 46
• Minority Report
• 2046 (admittedly, this is a bit of a stretch as SF, but better movie certainly)
• Primer (not necessarily a flashier movie, but certainly a better example of SF)
• A Scanner Darkly
• The Fountain
• The Prestige (the science doesn't have to be up-front to be SF)
And those are just the ones that fairly leapt to mind like keener kids in the front row.
I suppose you could also want to include Vanilla Sky on the list, but it's a pale remake of Abre los ojos, which came out two years before Keanu's resuscitation vehicle. And by including that, let's chalk up three writer credits for Philip K. Dick on that list (five, if you are brave enough to include Impostor and Paycheck, which are neither better films than The Matrix, and arguably not quite as good SF either, but that last point is certainly arguable -- it's really hard to completely obscure and butcher Dick's ideas, but Georgaris' woeful adaptation of "Paycheck" certainly comes close).
Comparing Sunshine to The Matrix, and not, say, Solaris leads me to have serious doubts about whether I want to see Sunshine. And that's not good. Frankly, I want more films like Solaris or Code 46 or Scanner Darkly as exemplars of the SF genre: a genre that, primarily, seeks to invoke wonder and thoughtfulness in the audience.
What I don't want is more films like The Matrix and Serenity which, frankly, are to SF as the entire modern James Bond movie franchise is to the espionage genre.
I really hope that Sunshine isn't just another big-guns, big-explosions, big-nothing movie. I had hopes for so much more.
