I saw Inception over the weekend and like many others, I was completely blown away by it. I won't go into a review of the film because there are plenty out there that praise and delve into freudian insights that I can't. The general consensus is a positive one but it's the negative reviews that got me thinking more about Inception and the cognitive hurdles that sci-fi and fantasy have to face in order to be embraced and enjoyed.
Sci-fi operates on appealing to the viewer's logic and scientific reasoning while also putting a great deal of faith in the hope that the viewer will accept the improbability of the world and the ideas being presented to them. Just think about the suspension of belief you have to employ to enjoy a movie like, say, Jurassic Park (maybe you didn't like JP but just go with it). On the one hand, it's ridiculous to imagine bringing back extinct dinosaurs and housing them in a zoo. Then again, cloning dinosaurs from the DNA found in blood samples that are encased in amber does sound plausible on the surface. Ok, maybe not if you're a geneticist but for the laymen an answer like that makes some kind of logical sense and we can accept the world of Jurassic Park. It would be a different story if the dinos came from a magical source or even through time travel. The impossibility reads more easily in cases like those and the viewer may not accept the basic premise of the story let alone the entire plot and the movie that springs from it. But DNA? Sure, we've heard about that. Cloning? We did it.
A movie like Inception has even more hurdles to jump because while it has many genre bending aspects, it's still sci-fi. But unlike Jurrassic Park, there is no DNA to grab that grounds you in the real world. There isn't a real world truth that will get your brain going into rationalization mode. Everything about the movie is fantasy. From the plot, to the dreams, to how they get into a shared dream. So the viewer has to really get into the world presented in Inception and accept the movie's reality as the only reality in order for the plot and story to gel. I know that some viewers have a hard time letting go of what they know about the real world. I had a similar problem when I saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Iron Man 2 because I had gone through a grueling semester of chemistry and those movies were just not going to fly in my brain. So I can understand why Inception might read as cheesy or unbelievable. I even had moments of disbelief during the beginning of the movie and some of the dream this and dream that dialogue left me thinking, really? we're having a serious conversation about this? It can definitely be ridiculous and laughable but where I think Inception works is that the skepticism shakes off as the movie progresses. This movie keeps the intensity high and the edge of your seat feeling leaves one too immersed in the moment to question it. But I guess that's only true if you allow yourself and if your reasoning is not too conflicted with the fantasy.
I think sci-fi, more than any other genre, faces harsher criticism and has suffered in popularity particularly because it challenges our reality. There is a certain level of coldness or distance that is off-putting because the worlds shown to us can be hard to relate to or believe in. What ultimately bonds us to the world and each other is a collective human experience. We know fear, we know love, we know loss and these things are timeless. And when I think about the sci-fi movies that have gone on to do well or that are cultural institutions, it's the human condition that was at the heart of them. Star Wars was less about an intergalactic battle than learning about who you are and figuring out your destiny. There has to be a heart in all the machinery, in the made-up technology, and the worlds we'll never know. Was there enough heart in Inception? I think multiple viewings can open up an answer to that question. The first viewing was a chance to take it all in and get an introduction into their world. But in order for the genre as a whole to be a staple and not alienate people, it has to continue to play up to people's minds and their hearts.
I think we're living in sci-fi's heyday with many quality movies and TV shows finding mainstream success. I just hope it can sustain momentum and not fall off popularity again. There are so many new ideas and stories yet to be told that ultimately say something about us as a species. I would hate to miss out on potentially great movies because sci-fi has once again, become a risky genre.
A movie like Inception has even more hurdles to jump because while it has many genre bending aspects, it's still sci-fi. But unlike Jurrassic Park, there is no DNA to grab that grounds you in the real world. There isn't a real world truth that will get your brain going into rationalization mode. Everything about the movie is fantasy. From the plot, to the dreams, to how they get into a shared dream. So the viewer has to really get into the world presented in Inception and accept the movie's reality as the only reality in order for the plot and story to gel. I know that some viewers have a hard time letting go of what they know about the real world. I had a similar problem when I saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Iron Man 2 because I had gone through a grueling semester of chemistry and those movies were just not going to fly in my brain. So I can understand why Inception might read as cheesy or unbelievable. I even had moments of disbelief during the beginning of the movie and some of the dream this and dream that dialogue left me thinking, really? we're having a serious conversation about this? It can definitely be ridiculous and laughable but where I think Inception works is that the skepticism shakes off as the movie progresses. This movie keeps the intensity high and the edge of your seat feeling leaves one too immersed in the moment to question it. But I guess that's only true if you allow yourself and if your reasoning is not too conflicted with the fantasy.
I think sci-fi, more than any other genre, faces harsher criticism and has suffered in popularity particularly because it challenges our reality. There is a certain level of coldness or distance that is off-putting because the worlds shown to us can be hard to relate to or believe in. What ultimately bonds us to the world and each other is a collective human experience. We know fear, we know love, we know loss and these things are timeless. And when I think about the sci-fi movies that have gone on to do well or that are cultural institutions, it's the human condition that was at the heart of them. Star Wars was less about an intergalactic battle than learning about who you are and figuring out your destiny. There has to be a heart in all the machinery, in the made-up technology, and the worlds we'll never know. Was there enough heart in Inception? I think multiple viewings can open up an answer to that question. The first viewing was a chance to take it all in and get an introduction into their world. But in order for the genre as a whole to be a staple and not alienate people, it has to continue to play up to people's minds and their hearts.
I think we're living in sci-fi's heyday with many quality movies and TV shows finding mainstream success. I just hope it can sustain momentum and not fall off popularity again. There are so many new ideas and stories yet to be told that ultimately say something about us as a species. I would hate to miss out on potentially great movies because sci-fi has once again, become a risky genre.
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