RoboCop. Constellations: Studies in Science Fiction Film and TV by Ohmar Ahmed, and: Rollerball. Constellations: Studies in Science Fiction Film and TV by Andrew Nette (review)

Sf cinema has been imagining dystopias since Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (Germany 1927). In our current century, dystopia is big business; indeed, it is difficult to find cinematic utopia outside of the Star Trek universe (1966–), which itself has taken a decidedly dystopian turn in recent instalments directed (and, later, produced) by J.J. Abrams. Anyone’s utopia is someone else’s dystopia, and some of the best recent speculative films have investigated this dialectic. Dystopian sf films have a canon of classics, and the Constellations books on Rollerball (Jewison US 1975), by Andrew Nette, and RoboCop (Verhoeven US 1987), by Omar Ahmed, examine why these films are included in this list.

Far from being escapist entertainment, these two films not only illuminate their own historical periods, the mid-1970s and mid-1980s respectively, but also gain in value through their diagnoses of a future society that ours increasingly resembles. In this review, I will measure these books against the mission statement of the Constellations series, an editorial note that they append to the beginning of each book, which states their goal to use multiple frames and methodologies in order ‘to map the terrain of science fiction cinema from the past to the present… and the future’ (n.p.; ellipses in original). This discussion of the books, then, will examine what they trace within this cartography of the genre and whether this connects the geography in such a way that we can better navigate the terrain of sf film.

These books can be usefully evaluated together because the films that they treat, although quite different works when viewing surface details like plot and setting, both examine our society’s excesses, depicting its obsession with consumer products and violent entertainment. Also, both books follow the same basic structure in their exploration of the films, beginning with the origin of the story, looking at the movie’s production and then discussing the reception that they had at the time of their release as well as the continuing importance of these sf works.

Nette begins his analysis by examining how Rollerball acts as a postmodern critique of the disappearance of history from public consciousness. Using this as context for what follows, he reviews the career of Norman Jewison and describes the film’s lasting impact and influence on himself and 1970s cinema. Nette argues that this film ‘simultaneously exhibits the cinematic aesthetics of mainstream, exploitation and art house cinema, in the process transcending its commercial prerogative of action entertainment to be a sophisticated and disturbing portrayal of a dystopian future’ (9). His book makes a good case for this claim, observing that this was the first film to credit its stunt performers by name, changing the recognition that these important contributors to Hollywood films received thereafter. According to Nette, the film ‘highlights a key facet of the cinematic depiction of violence as a political and entertainment spectacle: the audience’s culpability in viewing and enjoying it’ (13). He ends his introduction by explaining how Rollerball increases in relevance as time passes because it ‘depicts future society as a place of relative material abundance but riven by political apathy, spiritual ennui, and declining functional literacy and historical memory’ (16–17). The film displays how capitalist hegemony operates by atomising and placating society.

Introducing the subject of RoboCop, like Nette, Ahmed describes his personal encounter with the film at a seminal age and its effects on him. Then, before talking about its origin, he attempts a discussion of cyborg consciousness, citing the work of Donna Haraway without adequately unpacking her very dense theorisation. Because of this, the subsequent analysis of a sequence in the film where the cyborg police officer returns to his previous home and experiences memories offers a ‘psychological reading’ that does...