Endangering Science Fiction Film eds. Sean Redmond and Leon Marvell (review)

Darko Suvin’s exclusionary definition of sf as ‘cognitive estrangement’ has cast a long shadow over sf criticism for almost 40 years; Redmond and Marvell’s intriguingly titled anthology, Endangering Science Fiction Film, sits firmly in that shadow. The book’s central thesis argues that the jeopardy shaping most genre film plotting, and which threatens a storyworld’s status quo, not only exposes film characters to danger but also ‘places viewers at the epicenter of the danger’ (1). Since these threats are ideologically charged, ‘the genre film, then, has phenomenal, phenomenological, and bio-political potential as a site of cognitive, ideological, and carnal endangerment’ (1). In the sf film, such ‘endangerment is also calibrated metaphorically’, since ‘these texts are not about the future but about the present that is being lived in the “real” world’ (2); accordingly, the collection’s title alludes both to a classification and an affect, arguing for the existence of sf films that endanger an audience’s worldview.

This is by no means a radical thesis, and the evidence presented will be familiar to most knowledgeable readers, particularly those aware of the critical discourses around print sf. Nevertheless, the argument is well made. The editors cite sf film’s use of other worlds to ‘challenge, unsettle, and undermine the known logic of the human world’ (3), its capacity to ‘annihilate time’ (3) and engineer encounters with the sublime by untethering the viewer through its use of special effects, its questioning of the integrity of the human body, and its potential for advocating taboo ideas and radical politics whilst calling into question cherished beliefs hitherto perceived to be inviolable. Conversely, they also recognise that sf film is ‘endangering’ because it often promotes the dominant ideology. It is between these two contrary but dialogic positions that Endangering Science Fiction Film locates itself, though it focuses more on sf film’s capacity to challenge – or endanger – rather than reinforce worldviews. It is a more valuable study as a result, since it draws attention to the various means by which the genre may fulfil its critical potential.

The text is organised into four sections, each centred on a particular mode of endangerment. The first, ‘The Philosophy of Science Fiction Endangerment’, introduces the critical and philosophical dimensions of the subject at varying depths. Douglas Kellner’s ‘Kubrick’s 2001 and the Dangers of Techno-Dystopia’ is an engaging close analysis drawing out the tensions between the film’s unsettling vision of human ascension and its more forthright treatment of technological alienation and dehumanisation. 2001, Kellner argues, endangers the audience’s confidence in the unproblematic advancement of technology. Theoretically light, the essay is excellent introductory reading for undergraduate discussions of the film.

By contrast, Sean Redmond’s ‘Eye-tracking the Sublime in Spectacular Moments of Science Fiction Film’ appears flawed. Making innovative use of eye-tracking technology, Redmond argues that sf film’s set pieces create ‘two distinct gazing regimes’: ‘sublime contemplation where viewers are (haptically) lost in the wondrous images liquefying before them’ and commodified viewing experiences driven ‘by the theme park aesthetic and by the logic of late capitalism’ (32). To substantiate his claim, he analyses Sunshine (Boyle UK/US 2007) and Godzilla (Emmerich US/Japan 1998). His conclusions are unconvincing, however. Rather than being analysed objectively, the limited data obtained from the eye-tracking experiments are used to support what are clearly preconceptions about the films. Eye-tracking technology has great potential for the phenomenological study of film reception, but it will require greater scientific rigour than is demonstrated here.

The real merit of the first section lies in Sean Cubitt’s ‘Hope in Children of Men and Firefly/Serenity: Nihilism, Waste and the Dialectics of the Sublime’ and Vint’s ‘Biopolitics and the War on Terror in World War Z and Monsters’. Both essays are models of intelligent theoretical engagement and insightful critical analysis. Cubitt’s essay employs eschatology, ‘the theology of hope’ (51), to assess how sf film...