The SciFi genre has been popular since the early 1900s but became widely popular after Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey". Throughout the 1970s and 80s, many classic SciFi films were released and helped commercialize the genre. Common SciFi themes include alien invasions, time travel, robots vs. humans, and questioning humanity. Iconic directors and actors like Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, and Arnold Schwarzenegger are regularly featured in big-budget SciFi films. Blade Runner from 1982 is considered one of the greatest SciFi films of all time despite its depiction of a dystopian future.

2.  The SciFi genre has been around since the early
1900’s. It started off with silent films, by
people like Georges Méliès.
 The Genre first became big in 1968 when
Stanley Kubrick made the film ‘2001 space
odyssey’, after this he want on to make two of
the greatest films ever made; A Clockwork
Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest.
 This film set the landmark for SciFi films.

3.  After 2001 space odyssey gave the SciFi genre
the advertisement needed to grow commercial.
 Through out the 70’s and 80’s many classic
SciFi films were released including Alien,
Aliens, Star Wars many more.
 This commercialization meant there was now a
lot more money involved meaning promotion
companies like Warner Brothers and 20th
century fox could exploit this.

4.  Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction:
speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are
not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as
extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory
perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic
elements such as spacecraft, robots, or other technologies.
Science fiction films have often been used to focus on
political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues
like the human condition. In many cases, tropes derived
from written science fiction may be used by filmmakers
ignorant of or at best indifferent to the standards of scientific
plausibility and plot logic to which written science fiction is
traditionally held. This is what SciFi is in the words of
wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_film

5.  Modern SciFi films like avatar have huge
budgets and have exploded onto the red carpet
scene.
 It had a budget of over 250 million
dollars, some say this is taking it away from
Scifi’s B movie origins.
 The film made over 2 billion dollars.

6.  Robot Films
 Invasion
- Alien invasions
- Environmental Disaster
- Man Supplanted
- Nuclear War
- Pandemic
 Time Travel Films
 Monster Films
 Mind And Identity

7.  Steven Spielberg
- War Of The Worlds
 Ridley Scott
- Alien
 John McTiernan
- Predetor

8. Cliché
In the that the dark
Also notice in most high
Noticebackground of most
scifi posters posters, show
colours in the shows a
budget SciFiit background
landscape of the main with
which are contrasted of
a long shotshot. A lotby
them have a background
the bright colours or
a modern weapon of the
where you
new technology. New
technology.cant tell where
they are. They often of
technology is typical could
be SciFi.
theon a different planet.
Space and other planets
are typical to the scifi

9. SciFi Poster images:
http://blastr.com/2010/12/12-strikingly-
similar-movie-posters-spotlight-a-sci-fi-
cliche.php
http://www.imdb.com
Here are some more scifi posters. Notice
how there is a sense of confusion among
the faces of the people in the more
modern posters.
In the posters with multiple people in, notice
that you can see stock characters behind the
protagonists. One of the stock characters that
is seen often is the hot girlfriend.

10. SciFi Now magazine entices the
stereotypical scifi fan by using
spacey colours in there logo. They
also use a planet with a planetary
ring around it for the dot on the ‘I’,
this immediately draws in the
audience.
SFX use a shiny silver font, this
gives a sense of modernism. The
contrast on the side of the lettering
makes the letters look like metal.
The line in the X going from top
left to bottom right, looks like a
knife this links to the action part of
the scifi genre.

11. • In the guardians top 10 scifi films, most of the films are made by 20th Century
fox and Warner Brothers production companies. They have extremely large
budget and expectations. With this this budget they can put lots of money into
advertisement like posters, websites and trailers.

13. Star T / Star W
This shows
that all Sci-Fi
Theme Pref. fans
questioned
preferred Star
Set Pref. Wars to Star
Trek.
Series 1
Poster feature Series 2
Series 3
Series 4
Last Watched Series 5
Age
Gender
0 1 2 3 4 5 6

14.  http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox/avatar/
 Look at the difference in CGI, and camera
technology. Even the style of font has changed.
 http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2
84858393/

15.  The Avatar trailer gets straight to the
action, showing off all the special effects and
the big budget.
 The Avatar trailer also shows many images of
the the main characters (Michelle Rodriguez
and Sam Worthington)
 The Alien trailer is slightly slower and builds
up more tension.

16.  There are many actors you can expect to see
over and over again as the main characters.
 Arnold Schwarzenegger often has a main role
in SciFi Film. When you see his name in the
film poster, you immediately know its going to
be an action packed high budget SciFi film.
 Hugh Jackman is another example of
this, when you see Hugh Jackman in a film you
automatically know its going to be a SciFi film.

17.  You often find Will Smith in SciFi films, and he
always plays the same role… Jesus.
 In every SciFi film Will Smith is in, he has to
sacrifice himself or something to save someone.

18.  X - men has a huge franchise, as soon as you
see wolverines claws or storms eyes you know
its going to be an X – men film.
 Having a franchise this big is a huge marketing
concept. Marvel could release a film about
wolverines claw and people would still pay to
watch because X – men has built a reputation
for action packed SciFi films.

19.  There are many concepts dealt with, within
SciFi films.
 They make you question humanity, and what
will the future be like? And what kind of mess
will we get ourselves into? This is also seen in
SciFi books too. In George Orwells 1984 he
speaks about cameras watching everyone on
‘tele screens’. This book was made before tv
was big and before CCTV and big brother! You
never know the fictional SciFi films could
become true.

20.  Another theme it also very common is Robots Vs
Humans.
 Most modern SciFi films are about robot invasion.
Most of these films have a little kid who screams a
lot and is highly attached to someone e.g. a
brother, a girl he likes, or just a friend.
 Most Steven Spielberg films have this theme.
 With this formula and Spielberg’s budget and
reputations, they are bound to make money.
Recently his films Super 8 and War of the Worlds
were awful films but had that money making
formula.

21.  Another theme that often re-occurs in SciFi films, is
the do robots / aliens have feelings?
 iRobot is a classic example of this, the main robot
has feelings because the robot programmer wanted
to make him different. This raises the issue, do
clones have feelings?
 In Super 8 as well the Robot also has feelings. The
little kid manages to have some kind of connection
with the robot. We know this because when he
speaks to him in a sympathetic way the robot stops
what he is doing and drops what he is holding.

22.  Blade Runner is going to be top of every top SciFi
film list.
 The film was made in the 80’s yet it still to this
day, it looks futuristic and modern.
 The film was directed by Ridley Scott.
 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/ This is a
review and description of the film, although they
have only given 4 stars; your average SciFi fan will
say this is the best film ever made.
 The film shows many SciFicliches including
robots, spaceships and a quest.
 Blade Runner is a film about distopia.