Movies - History of science fiction films

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	Movies - History of science fiction films

The history of science fiction films parallels that of the movie industry as a whole, although it took several decades before the genre was taken seriously. Since the 1960s, major science fiction films have succeeded in pulling in large audience shares, and films of this genre have become a regular staple of the film industry. Science fiction films have led the way in special effects technology, and have also been used as a vehicle for social commentary.

Before 1930

Science fiction films appeared very early in the silent film era. The initial attempts were short films of typically 1 to 2 minutes in duration, shot in black and white, but sometimes with colour tinting. These shorts usually had a technological theme and were often intended to be humorous.

In 1902, Georges Méliès released Le Voyage dans La Lune, the best-known early science fiction film. Inspired by the novels of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, it portrayed a journey to the Moon in a spacecraft launched by a powerful gun. This movie's space travel plot, its fantastic vision of a Moon inhabited by frightening aliens, and its innovative special effects, influenced future sci-fi films.

In 1910, Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein was adapted for the screen, in one of the earlist mergers of sci-fi and horror. Although only 16 minutes long, the film produces a suitably dark mood and would be remade several times in the future. Another such horror movie, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was released in 1913.

A longer science fiction film (and which introduced underwater filming) was Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
in 1916, based on the novels of Jules Verne.

The 1920s saw a distinct difference between American and European science fiction. European film-makers tended to use the genre for prediction and social commentary, with films such as Metropolis
(1926) and Die Frau im Mond
(1929) — both from Germany. By contrast, Hollywood used it to create action, melodramatic plots, and gadgetry. This emphasis would blossom into the serials of the 1930s, and echoes of this trend can still be seen today in films such as the various James Bond movies.

1930s

Movies during the 1930s provided an escape from the poverty of the Great Depression, and it was during this era that film-making experienced a golden age. Movies now possessed a sound-track, and the extreme physical expression of the silent era was replaced by dialogue. The films were focused on the actors, rather than the still-primitive special effects (an exception was the 1933 release of King Kong, including scenes of the giant ape battling biplanes atop the Empire State Building). Most sci-fi films focused on human drama, instead of aliens, space travel, or disasters.

Influenced by Metropolis the 1930 release Just Imagine
was the first feature length science fiction film by a US studio but the film was an expensive flop and no studio would produce a feature length science fiction film until the 1950s. The British made Things to Come
(1936), also influenced by Metropolis, which was one of the most influential attempts at using special effects to evoke 'spectacle', but it too was a failure at the box office.

This decade also saw the rise of serial movies, most notably the various Flash Gordon films, as well as the quasi-sci-fi Dick Tracy
and others. These were low budget, often hastily-produced efforts employing soon-to-be-stock ideas such as the mad scientist, high-tech gadgets, and plots for world domination.

The decade also saw the release of several horror films with science fiction elements, such as The Invisible Man (1933) and new versions of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
.

1940s

With World War II dominating events during the 1940s, few science fiction films were released and several of those were mere vehicles for war propaganda. Among the few notable examples was Dr Cyclops (1940), an early colour film, and Fleischer Studio's animated Superman short subjects, which often incorporated science-fiction themes.

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