Take the Alien movies for example. Yes, they take place in space and are about aliens. So right there is has two HUGE sci-fi aspects to it. But to me, it doesn’t feel like sci-fi. They are action horror movies that just so happen to take place in space. Ridley Scott says in his Alien (99%) commentary that he wanted to make “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in space. He put regular looking working class people doing basically “oil rig” work in space. Instead of a maniac killing them, its something unknown and ruthless. Its basically a minimalist survival tale. I remember as a kid thinking the last 20 minutes of the movie were devastatingly scary. I couldn’t imagine being the only person left and having to get from one part of the ship to another with “something” out there. Aliens, (an amazing 100%) is more of an action film but with horror moments and a lot of character depth to it. Alien 3 (32%) is actually one of my favorite movies. Sure it was marred by serious production woes and a questionable script origin, however it is a very dark movie with serious “Is there a God” tones. David Fincher made it his own and I have become a huge Fincher fan. I don’t pay attention to any of the sequals/spinoffs after that as the quality of the films seriously decline.
Yes, there is a distinct possibility that aliens do not exist. There has been no widespread known physical evidence so far. However, the same can be said from different people about ghosts, God and the Devil.
The Terminator movies fall into this category as well. Okay, yes again, they deal with robots and the future, two more major sci-fi aspects. But again, it takes place in a human world and the sci-fi parts kinda just stumbles into it. In fact, the first Terminator (100%) has been quoted as “This is a monster movie” in many reviews. Just a thing that comes after you and seemingly cant be killed, like in Halloween or Friday the 13th movies. Terminator 2 (97%) upped the CGI anti and filled it with more heart. It is also a darker story that explores fate vs inevitability vs responsibility.
I actually think Terminator 3 (70%) is smarter than most people give it credit for. Sure it doesn’t really bring anything revolutionary to the table, but it’s the 3rd movie in a franchise, its hard to be original without being a completely different movie. It also has several silly moments which weren’t needed. But it is a well thought story line. The movie also answers a question that the first two movie (as good as they are) contradict. If they stop the war from happening, how can the terminator be sent back to assists them, thus, enabling the whole story to exist. T3 makes a plausible and depressing case that the war is inevitable which explains why the terminators were able to be sent back. Also, there is a major gap between the present days of the first two movies and the supposed war in the future. The third movie actually shows the days leading up to the day it all begins, filling in that “audience-distancing” gap.
There are many movies that talk about technology advancing and ultimately turning on us, (I Robot, A.I., The Matrix), that the idea of it actually getting to the point is somewhat plausible. If you look at the world fifty years ago and look at the technological progression up to present time and then project forward another fifty years of compounded advances, there will be a thin line separating our complete dependence on technology. There will be a point where we will have to figure out if we as people will ever be able to live without computer assistance. On top of that, computers can closely be compared to human brains and we eventually evolved. And the thing is, they would evolve stronger, smarter and faster than us, and the scariest aspect is they would be and emotionally indifferent only using percentages to rationalize their decisions. If computers somehow evolve someday into something resembling free will, that would make us their God’s, and look at all the wars that started over religion.
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