Science Fiction Archives - FilmFisher

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (PG-13)

Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story feels nothing like any other Star Wars film. At first, that’s jarring, even off-putting. Once you settle into its particular rhythm, it’s exhilarating. There is no opening crawl of yellow text setting up the story. There are no Kurosawa-esque wipes to transition between scenes. The story isn’t […]
Captain America: Civil War (PG-13)

This is the zenith of Marvel’s storytelling method. Over the past eight years – a time period winkingly referred to in the film – the studio has built an intricately interconnected “cinematic universe” through thirteen feature films. This model has drawbacks and benefits, both of which I discuss at length in my essay on The […]
The Avengers: Age of Ultron and the Ethos of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (PG-13)

INTRO: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Joss Whedon, and Myself I consider myself a casual Marvel fan. I could probably count the number of superhero comics I’ve read on one hand, but I’ve seen every film in the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” (the web of interconnected superhero films that started with Iron Man) since Iron Man 2 (2010) in […]
The Bourne Atheist: Ridley Scott’s New Soulless Cosmos (PG-13)

This ain’t no Sierra Club. This ain’t no National Geographic Society neither. “Fuck you, Mars,” says Martian Mark Watney shortly after finding himself utterly alone on a foreign planet. Man has been set against nature many times before, especially in 20th century literature and film. At times, man must battle nature. The Old Man must […]
Where’s That Olde Time Religion? The Force Awakens (PG-13)

I suspect I am not unique in claiming to have had serious conversations with friends in the wee hours of the morning wherein real considerations of future plans have been hashed out using the original Star Wars trilogy as a template for a genuine pursuit of truth and goodness. Should I find a Yoda under […]
Drunk gods: Victor Frankenstein (PG-13)

When I remembered that Igor was never a character in the original Frankenstein story, I began to expect less of Victor Frankenstein, which makes Igor its main character. When I discovered that this version’s Frankenstein lives in a steampunk London, my expectations lowered yet more. They would descend much lower still. This is a shame, […]
The Martian: The Art of Not Knowing a Place for the First Time (PG-13)

If there is a reason why Americans do not easily cease from exploration it is because, for us, knowing a place for the first time is a horrifying prospect. English colonial writers had a sense of place and Russian novelists a sense of space, but Americans have always been most at home on the frontier—a […]
Ant-Man: A Humble Beginning (PG-13)

When a new planet swims into the ken of the Marvel cinematic universe, the gravity must be intense. Like stout Cortez staring at the Pacific for the first time, the wonder of new discovery quickly gives way to acquisition and assimilation. After several rounds of feature-length introductions to The Avengers, Ant-Man is an unexpected departure […]
Lost, Season One: Strangers On A Plane (Not Rated)

More than ten years since it began and more than five years since it ended, I have begun a grand revisitation of Lost. When I first began the show, I had just married and was still in school. I wasn’t much of a reader during my first encounter. I understood that many of the characters […]
Jupiter Ascending: Descent to Some Kind of Love (PG-13)

Conjure, if you will, a moving image of the hippest rollerblader you’ve ever seen. If you are strapped for stock images, try the reuniting-the-team segment at the front end of D2: The Mighty Ducks, or some other nineties vintage of the same ilk. Now, hoist that rollerblader twenty, thirty, a thousand feet into air—the same […]
Jurassic World: It’s No Wonderful Life (PG-13)

“Oh, my God! We finally, really did it! You maniacs….Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” The righteous invective Charlton Heston bellows in the final moments of The Planet of the Apes seems similarly suited to the resurrection and public opening of Jurassic Park. Bewilderingly, though, Jurassic World (both the film and the […]
Tomorrowland (PG)

In the opening minutes of Tomorrowland, a young boy shows us his homemade jetpack. It is meant to be fun and inspiring, but has one problem: it doesn’t work. It’s always nice when a movie hands you a metaphor for itself. It’s not nice when that movie breaks your heart in the process. There may […]
It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad Mad Max (R)

It’s hard to appreciate paganism properly. I can’t think of many convincingly pagan characters from motion pictures, because most cinematic pagans are nothing more than Republicans or athletes in togas. They talk like us, think like us, dress like us dressing like pagans, opine like us. Our ancient Greeks are suffragettes and our ancient Egyptians […]
Avengers: Age of Ultron (PG-13)

Halfway through Avengers: Age of Ultron, the eponymous robot waxes poetical and says to a few of his cronies, “Everyone creates the thing they fear.” It’s possible that this line was added by the writer and director, Joss Whedon, as an indication of how he felt about this movie. In many ways, Ultron is not […]
Ex Machina (R)

Ex Machina derives its title from the Latin “Deus ex machina,” meaning “god from the machine.” The film’s removal of God from its titular equation is apropos, as is the allusion to classical tragedy. In this polished directorial debut, Alex Garland (writer of 28 Days Later and Sunshine) has crafted something of a modern Greek […]
Chappie (R)

Whither Blomkamp? Chappie is the third feature-length film of South African director Neill Blomkamp, and, sadly, a disappointing attempt to reheat most of the ingredients of his acclaimed debut District 9. In that thoughtful and naturalistic variation on the familiar aliens-invading-earth premise, Blomkamp revealed a considerable gift for evoking pathos with the least likely characters: […]
Children of Men: Rachel Weeping In The 21st Century (R)

A little less than a decade back, the greatest Christmas movie of all time came and went with disappointingly little fanfare— I say “disappointingly little” despite the fact two dozen top American film critics put it in their top ten lists at the end of the year. A few of their reviews dabbled in the […]
Big Hero 6 (PG)

A group of misfits band together to stop an evil, mysterious villain and become an unlikely team of superheroes. No, that wasn’t a one-sentence description for this summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy; it’s a one-sentence description for this fall’s Big Hero 6. Big Hero 6 focuses on child prodigy Hiro (Ryan Potter), who is encouraged […]
Interstellar : Do Not Rage (PG-13)

“Do not go gentle into that good night,” says the old scientist. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” These lines, repeated throughout Christopher Nolan’s film Interstellar, are used to signal a fight for survival. Humanity is on the verge of starvation; abuse has broken the earth and blight has wiped out all crops […]
The Giver (PG-13)

A brilliant sunset. A wedding dance. The color red. Each person who reads these words will see a unique image. Humanity may share experiences, but because of our memories—and our emotions—we approach these commonalities in vastly different ways. Variety and choice aren’t just the spice of life. They make us human. In The Giver, a […]

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