In a similar way, though the superb series, Samurai Jack, has time-travel as a central plot element, the show is also, essentially, a hero’s quest.Īlso excluded are Voltron, ThunderCats and other “Space Force” cartoons, which are, essentially, Westerns, written from the point of view of the cavalry. No science was harmed in the making of the films or their animated spinoffs. Luke Skywalker is the Fairy Prince out to return the world to its Golden Age. Darth Vader is the Prince of Darkness with a fiery sword. Bruce Banner’s transformation is therefore, magical and not scientific.īy the same token, Star Wars and its imitators also offer fantasy instead of science. He’ll turn into a horribly disfigured corpse. A man “blasted by gamma rays” won’t turn into the Hulk. While the X-men franchise includes sciencey talk about “mutation” it presents a fantasy of mutation. Besides, there’s no science to support the idea of a humanoid head that can generate “heat vision” without exploding or, “x-ray vision” without radiation sickness, cancer and, of course, singed eyeballs. His recent incarnations, replete with details about his high-tech birth world, change nothing. I see Superman as a latter day Heracles, whose saga is only tangentially related to science. Here’s why.įor my money, a superhero is no different from a traditional, mythological character. Excluded are all superhero stories and anything either based on, or analogous to, the Star Wars universe. In making my selection, I made a distinction between storylines with science fiction at their core and those whose relationship to sci-fi is superficial. So out of curiosity, I did a little of what I will charitably call “research” at Google University to explore the past and present of top-rated sci-fi animations. What’s more, if you look beneath the cels and the cgi, you can see a reflection of how many people “receive” science fiction. So perhaps it’s only natural that animation studios now produce a steady stream of science fiction film and video. ![]() ![]() ![]() Whether readers want to teleport to exotic worlds, meet an alien, alter their genome, or save the universe from heartless corporate demons, there’s a storyline for that. Even in its dystopian subgenre, science fiction is a realm of possibility. Like lovers of animation, they get a kick out of contemplating worlds in which “normal” has been replaced by action that plays fast and loose with everyday reality. If none of it reaches the sublime age-neutrality of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, an adult with an active imagination can still satisfy the craving that only a half-hour of raucous unreality can satisfy.Īs I see it, a form of that same craving is what drives many readers to science fiction. That’s because, on average, commercial animation now targets children and early teens.Īll the same, while the exquisite joy of watching Bugs Bunny drop a piano on Yosemite Sam is gone forever, adults need not go hungry for animation’s inherent, quicksilver wit. Today, that tradition continues in mass-market animation, though for the most part, in a milder form. In the 1930s, when animated shorts first appeared in movie theaters, the form was a riot of metamorphic, satirical, violent or vaguely amorous action.
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