Sci-Fi is the point! Sci-Fi has been in film sense the beginning, at least 1895... La Charcuterie mécanique is a French film made in 1895 and is considered the first sci-fi movie. One of the earliest influential sci-fi films was Le Voyage dans la lune, or A Trip to The Moon by Georges Méliès. This 14 min, silent film uses tons of visual effects and trick photography (including a man's face covered in some kind of cream to represent the "man in the moon").
What's great about this film is the fact that, not only did it influence filmmakers to come, it included certain things that have become common place in film, such as multiple cuts of scenes in different views and time-lapse photography. Even though the editing was a bit lacking, the film was so influential it was also copied by The Smashing Pumpkins for the music video "Tonight, Tonight" and The Mighty Boosh's character of the Moon is based off of the moon in this film (if you can't tell).
But here's the movie is you want to watch it... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JDaOOw0MEE
After Le Voyage dans la lune, there were many sci-fi films made, but the next major example of an important sci-fi film is Metropolis by Fritz Lang (released in 1927). It tells the story of a futuristic struggle between the upper class and the working class. What's important about this film is the story... it uses sci-fi to tell the story of the age old struggle of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in capitalism. It takes a futuristic and scientific view of this ideal, which is important to the legitimacy of the sci-fi genre. Without a message, a meaning and a strong plot, sci-fi is a bit of a ridiculous genre and very rarely after Metropolis, do you see a sci-fi movie with a real message. (here's the synopsis... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/plotsummary).
Through the 30s, 40s and 50s, sci-fi went underground. Mainly consisting of b-movies, low budget and campy sci-fi horror films, none are really too important. The major sci-fi films of the 30s and 40s especially, such as Frankenstein, King Kong, or The Invisible Man were more widely known as horror films and it wasn't until the early 1950s that the sci-fi genre started to make a come back. Films like, The Day The Earth Stood Still, The War of The Worlds, Invasion of The Body Snatchers, and The Blob, were big movies in the sci-fi genre... but still focused quite a bit on the horror aspects (which is common for sci-fi most of the time). Toward the end of all of this b-movie action comes what is generally considered the worst movie ever made... Plan 9 From Outer Space. This film was made in 1959 by Ed Wood and features the last performance of Bela Lugosi (even though he died in 1956). It involves a plan by aliens to stop Earth from creating a doomsday device by creating zombies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052077/plotsummary). Why is this "the worst movie ever made"? Well it has poor acting, horrible special effects, continuity mistakes, miserable dialogue, mics in shots, noticeable wiring and many other mistakes. This is the frequent trend in the science fiction films of this time and it didn't really change and progress until the 1960s.
There weren't many sci-fi films in the 1960s but, questionably the most important one was Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Made in 1968 it's one of the most important sci-fi movies ever. It gave realism and believability to the genre... it had it all, a philosophical stand point, a sweeping plot, realistic visual effects (some more realistic than later movies), and technology that is actually scene today (a few of the computers in the film look just like the modern day iPad). It deals with evolution, alien technology, the loneliness and solitude of space, technological advancement, and time warps. This movie, even with all of it's importance and grandiose scale and arching, sweeping subject matter, is horribly boring (at least in my opinion). It's a slow movie with a confusing ending, however, the entire section of the movie that involves the supercomputer HAL, is entirely genius. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/synopsis. This movie effected and influenced every sci-fi movie to come. Other major 60s sci-fi films that weren't nearly as influential were The Planet of The Apes, Barbarella, Alphaville and Godzilla (even though the first Godzilla film was done in 1954).
By the 70s and 80s, sci-fi was making a come back (a large part because of the moon landings), many good sci-fi were made at this time, Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, Soylent Green, and other films that deal with the paranoia of technology and the government... There was sci-fi horror like Alien, and popular films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, RoboCop, Blade Runner, The Terminator, (Schwarzenegger DOES fit into this post!), Back To The Future and ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (that was a rip off of a scrapped Indian film). The biggest movie of this period was probably Star Wars. I don't think there could EVER be a sci-fi post WITHOUT mentioning Star Wars. It's one of the most important films of the past century, developing many things like the production company ILM, use of grandiose and detailed models and puppets, and many cutting edge visual effects. Telling an epic story that becomes more complicated with each installment, it influences and effects things to this day, the story never ends, only becomes more dense, and it's still as popular today as ever. Star Wars is in no way a perfect movie, Luke whines too much (which you find out fast when playing the drinking game), the dialogue is poor, the acting is poor, the plot was taken from other stories and it has some continuity errors but it is a great and important work of cinema (which I may do a whole post on at a later date).
The 80s saw sci-fi movies become international phenomena, and ridiculous action packed affairs that had very shallow story lines but kept the public entertained. The Terminator being a prime example, the story has twisted and become odd and lush, but still doesn't have the depth of some movies before it... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/synopsis
With the internet came a different kind of sci-fi film... it included more technology and stories based around the internet technology, Total Recall and The Matrix are examples while others dealt with disasters (Armageddon), invasion (Independence Day) and experiments (Jurassic Park). The Matrix was another monumental science fiction film. It changed the way that action sequences were done, primarily the slow motion bullet sequence.
The look of sci-fi became sleek and modern, slow motion action scenes were edgy. It really changed the look of things and the kinds of action that people expected. In the 2000s now though, the world is obsessed with the end of the world, sci-fi now focuses a lot on alien invasion and other things that signify the world ending. District 9, 2012, Battle: Los Angeles and Children of Men all deal with either aliens or the world ending. Avatar, while I personally disliked it, DID have a solid story about conservation and not wiping out a race (a tale that was already told in a story called Pocahontas). Whether this makes for good movie or not is up to you.
Sci-fi is a very wide reaching style, one that you can mix with nearly anything. It's often mixed with horror, disaster, noir, comedy, action, even westerns (as seen in the upcoming film Cowboys & Aliens). More or less the genre is broad and can be adapted into nearly everything. So if you like sci-fi, way to go, there will be tons of it and it'll come in all different styles...
And there's your lesson for today, peace!
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