io9:
Look, The Shape of Water is great. Seriously, it is. But when you look at film history, the fact that The Shape of Water is the first science fiction film to ever win Best Picture is kind of weird. There have been decades and decades of phenomenal sci-fi films better than The Shape of Water, so for it to get the award first also feels a little frustrating. Here are some of the movies that earned the Best Picture Oscar—even if they didn’t win it.
Like most lists, this is completely subjective but, for at least the first eight on the list, I would have to agree.
I was underwhelmed by “Shape of Water”. It was good but not great.
Science fiction is still considered a ghetto genre by awards at this level.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of my favorite movies, even with Jim Carrey (who’s usually a guilty pleasure at best). I’d never really considered it as science fiction before, but now that I have it’s the genre it fits best into.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you should. It might be a Jim Carrey movie but it’s not a Jim Carrey movie.
iO9 has very little credibility. Their track record on science fiction is quite weak. I wouldn’t even call Shape of Water science fiction anyway. It’s more fantasy. Not the same thing.
They don’t really make sci-fi movies very often. The 70’s there were a few. Most are space-operas or action films set in space. Star Wars are more like fantasy with really no sci-fi.
“Shape of Water” isn’t sci-fi. More like horror-romance.
What was the Bruce Dern movie from the 70’s with the robots Huey, Duey and Louie? “Silent Running”? That was sci-fi or “Logan’s Run”.
My understanding of sci-fi is something that deals with the moral effects of advancing technology.
yeah I enjoyed it but this win didn’t make any sense. I think it was a make-up award for pans labyrinth.
it was a popcorn movie, not a great film.
Children of Men is my favourite on this list. The story, scripts, actors are all excellent and the single shot sequences are etched in my brain.
Not a good definition of science fiction. Science fiction is not about technology itself. It’s uses science and technology to tell stories that are relevant to the current age, often using a different time frame in which to couch the point of the story. (Future or past.)
And yes, Silent Running. I saw it in movie theaters when it was released. Was pretty impressive for its time. Also saw Logan’s Run and THX-1138 (with that spectacular car driving through the tunnel).
The award is usually tied to the times (as in where society is at the time) the movie was released. Most people give too much weight to to the winner which is natural. Especially when it comes to the Academy Awards, getting nominated is a huge accomplishment.
I see the hair-splitting over the definition of “science fiction” is well in hand. Too bad the Oscar committee never knew or cared about this sort of distinction.
“Since this is io9 and we’re clickbait that doesn’t know what this “SF” stuff even is, let’s just add random movies!”
(I liked Fury Road, but not I’m not sure I can call it SF.
I definitely can’t call The Wizard Of Oz SF, not King Kong.
Star Wars is more space opera, but “Space Opera Isn’t Properly SF” is not the hill to die on.)
I loved Shape of Water and after seeing all the Best Picture nominees this year, I believe it deserved to win.
That said, this list does contain some great films. Were they better than SoW? Not sure. We tend to romanticize classics, but it’s not always easy to predict what will become a classic. Groundhog Day was a middling success in 1983, but in the 25 years since has become iconic. Certainly The Wizard of Oz deserves (in hindsight) to have won Best Picture, though it’s not Sci Fi (and neither was SoW).
Benford’s defintion, as stated by Eric Raymond: “that branch of fantastic literature which affirms the rational
knowability of the universe, and has as its most particular reader
experience the sense of conceptual breakthrough – of having understood
the universe in a new and larger way.”
I find myself unable to gainsay it, as a lifelong fan.
Under that definition we’re not going to find hardly any films that are Really SF, is the problem.
If we broaden your definition’s “moral effects” to “moral, social, or other effects”, and “advancing” to “changing”, it’s not a bad definition for commonplace non-highly-technical-SF-fandom uses, even if Benford’s is a better definition of The Most Proper Sort Of SF**.
(I mean, I really like space opera. I just know it’s not properly SF.
** And Benford’s defintion explains why I have no truck with e.g. “Mary Shelley invented SF with Frankenstein!” claims.
She might have invented modern speculative fiction – and Frankenstein is a towering achievement – but it’s not science fiction; it’s a Regency morality tale with trappings of technology.
SF and speculative fiction are not synonyms.)
I don’t expect the Oscar people to.
I do – foolishly – expect io9, which claims to be focused on the genre, to not try and tell me that King Kong is an SF movie.
For me it’s simple, Sci-Fi is something that posits we are likely going to end up advancing science to the point where we have or can do X and what are the repercussions morally and pragmatically on the world as we know it. What issues (with these new abilities available through scientific breakthroughs) will we be grappling with.
And we want to read or watch SciFi in order to get a head start on thinking through those problems.
Pitting movies against each other is pretty goofy. I think you could typically make an argument for any movie or actor (in contention) deserving to win.
Meh. io9 comprises a bunch of different voices, and its parent company’s budget for editors has never been what I’d call “effective.” These days, I’m happy to find the very-occasional good article there.
pretty much. same with fantasy, horror, superheroes etc. they are fine for tech awards, but not the biggies. although the studios are fine with using them to make money to be able to afford to make their ‘art’ films.
I’d more or less agree with your definition. The difference between something like Shape of Water and something like say Star Trek is the level of the tech and its importance in the story.
Shape of Water is really more fantasy/monster than Sci-fi. it just takes place in a ‘science’ location. The story itself is really more character focused. Where it happens is moot. You could change it to a prison or a hospital or a theme park and still have basically the same story. Which might be why the Academy accepted it when they don’t accept something like Star Trek.
Or to use a TV example, Westworld. without the tech you don’t have a story. Because the story is about the tech and where it could go. As you say, the moral and pragmatic implications of the tech. And it’s even tech we’re already seeing today with things like Alexa and Siri and sexbots. And that ‘taking today into tomorrow’ is often viewed as a key element of ‘science’ fiction versus ‘science sounding fantasy’ where the tech is pulled out of someone’s ‘hat’
i agree that Shape isn’t really science fiction. the science and tech is just window dressing to the story. you could move this to a zoo and have the same story.
i’d say ‘what really is Science Fiction’ is the hill no one but PhD’s cares to die on. My cousin is a blogger who writes a lot about movies, tv, books etc and she often includes “I am defining X as” when writing about science fiction, comic book movies etc. because folks like to try to correct her when really it’s just a different opinion on the definition. like she wouldn’t call Star Wars ‘science fiction’ because the science has no connection to the real world. she’d call it ‘science sounding fantasy’, a term I love and I borrow from her a lot.
it’s like those lists of ’20 tv shows that shouldn’t have been cancelled’. ask 200 folks and half will agree, because they were fans of the show, and the others will disagree, because they were not fans
Yea, Star Trek (at least the original series. I haven’t seen any of the spinoffs) was actual sci-fi. The “prime directive”. How about “Battlestar Galactica” (the new version)? That seemed like it was well respected.
TV seems like a better place for sci fi.
You just reminded me of another movie this is probably sci-fi (I didn’t see it yet). “Her”, right? Did that win anything?