Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it’s the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. …Science fiction is central to everything we’ve ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don’t know what they’re talking about.
Ray Bradbury – Brown Daily Herald, March 24, 1995
Ladies and gentleman …Mesdames et Messieurs … Good evening ! This is the Captain of I.S.S. Rover speaking. It is 13 °C, the sky is covered in dark clouds, and it has been raining for a while already. On this stormy night I am inviting you to join me in exploring the knowingly unknown expanses of science fiction. A passion of mine, which I pointed out couple of times here on the pages of this blog:
And as you may already perceive, I myself wrote it down that I am very fond of fiction, and particularly so of science – fiction. I am an avid fan of it, since my childhood. It was my older sister who introduced me to Star Wars and Star Trek, my young soul was poisoned, and from that point on it was kinda inevitable not to immerse myself more and more in this whole milieu: the futurism, the wonderful worlds that lie beyond the sky out there in the stars.
I. S. S. Rover – Of ships and engines – October 05, 2013
But sci-fi is not my only fervour. There are quite a few of them, but at the moment I want to highlight only one another: history. What happens when these two meet ?! Major NERDGASM it is. And as it is, it might not be the most accurate description, but close enough. As any fan, I like to get behind the scenes, to get details, stories of how things of my admiration were made, created. But science fiction growing out of the pulp culture even today has a reputation of being less valuable than the forms of art that have been accepted as canon, that is being taught. And as art of a “lesser value”, records of it’s history are scarce, and there is also the matter of it’s consistency. So whenever I run into something – an article, a book, a TV or radio show – with it’s topic being sci-fi, and especially it’s history I become instantly excited. And that was what happened with me about a month ago when i first time saw the ad for the new documentary series of BBC America: The real history of science fiction. More so, as there are few comprehensive works on this topic, either written or in another form. To date I have seen only one documentary on history of speculative fiction, but it handled only the “golden age” of pulp fiction, so it can hardly be called comprehensive, even if superb in it’s presentation.
And today looking at the TV Guide I realised that the show began two weeks ago. I was so absorbed in everything else happening around me, that I totally forgot about it. Drat ! But no need to panic. Technology comes to aid, so it’s no big deal to catch up. And here I am, after I have watched the first episode, titled: Robots.
Where should I start ? It’s impressive how many notable acters – writers, screenplay writers, actors, directors, producers etc. – of the community appear in the show. It delighted me to see them, as not all of them are remembered, or recognised for their achievements today. Most of these appearances are contemporary, but there is archive footage used, when the prospective interviewee was someone who is not among us anymore, so you actually get to see some rare footage of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke too. This is the best about this new series.
The actual topic, the history of science fiction is on the other hand a bit sketchy at best. As the partial topic of the first episode were the robots, it does take us from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein all the way to A.I. , and there is talk not only about strictly taken robots, but also androids, cyborgs, and other artificially created life: clones, sentient computers etc. This is all nice and interesting, but there was more talk about technical details, the designs used in the movies, about the creators perception on the topic of the robots, and their vision, work of convincing the viewer that what they see could be reality. So there was more showmanship, than actual discussion on what the robots are, where does the idea of creating them come from. The whole creation of robots thing was hidden behind a single idea, the notion of playing god, wanting to create life, which yes, is part of the picture, but is only one part of it. Where is the rest ? Yes, the fear of the technology was also mentioned, but not much else really. The last sentences were already about augmented reality, how maybe the machines control us, and not we the other way around, which again is a different topic. Yes, Skynet took over the world and unleashed the Terminators, but he never intended to control the humanity, it strived to annihilate it. And though the collective machine intelligence of the Matrix is more, or less the same as Skynet, it would be functioning even without robots, so I would have left it for some other time.
All in all, this is a good show. Not a bad documentary, but it fails I would say in the delivery. It’s a good place to see some notable actors, writers etc. speak about their work, what inspired them to tell a science fiction story, but it’s mostly miscellaneous and technical details, there is very little about the thoughts, the ideas that spurned this. Asimov’s three laws of robotic’s are quoted, A. C. Clarke talks a little about the possibility of sentient computers, but that’s it. The rest is reminiscing about the paranoia, the visceral fear of technology, the unknown. And that is kind of like a flash bomb. it stuns you for a moment, but actually there is nothing behind it. Yes I am a bit dissappointed, I hoped for more initially, but I will watch the rest of the series, as it is a rare opportunity to see so many iconic acteurs of this venerable community.
And that’s it for tonight. Have fun, and take care. Hope to see you all soon again. Captain of I. S. S. Rover over, and out !
Keshik's excursions 