Fiction Film Research Articles

Islam and Science Fiction Film: The Portrayal of Kauniyah Verses in Interstellar (2014)

Research on media representation on Islam and Muslims have been carried out widely in the post 9/11 tragedy from a cultural, religion, political and social group lens. However, this paper discusses a science fiction film, Interstellar (2014), directed by Christopher Nolan. It is a film about space exploration by a group of scientists in their quest to find a new planet for humankind to replace the earth. The film portrays scenes of the scientists travelling into places in space - the wormhole and other potential planets for a living. Apart from highlighting space and its discovery journey from the perspective of modern science, this film can also be explored from the perspective of Islam. Many scenes in the movie represent and translate what Allah SWT has thought of Muslims through verses in the al-Quran. What are the scenes, and how does it relate to verses in the Quran? This paper uses qualitative content analysis to highlight selected verses of Kauniyah (verses explaining about Allah’s creation of the universe and its system) in the al-Quran as evidence that reflects the truth of al-Quran and the Islamic teachings. The findings are highlighted based on the relationship of scenes containing this evidence in the film with the verses in the Quran and their meanings. Keywords: Sci-fi film, science fiction, interstellar, Kauniyah verses, Islamic science.

Finding the Future of Surgical Robotics

The protagonist in the 2012 science fiction film, Prometheus, is millions of miles from earth with no operating room or surgeon in site. She must save her own life by programming and entering a “MedPod” that monitors her vital signs and performs diagnostic scans. The machine then autonomously delivers an anesthetic and performs a life-saving surgical procedure. Technological innovation often borrows from the fantastical elements of futuristic story telling. Science fact continues to follow on the heels of science fiction in the realm of progressively more autonomous robotic surgical procedures.

Psychological portrait of astronaut in modern American space fiction films of XXI century

This paper discloses a general psychological portrait of astronaut, which is shown in latest American space fiction films of XXI century. The purpose of this article is to find the most typical psychological features of astronauts, which are presented in films “Interstellar” (2014, director — K. Nolan), “The Martian” (2015, director — R. Scott), “Ad Astra“ (2019, director — J. Gray).
 The methodology of this article includes the using of axiological, systematic and comparative methods. Each of these methods helps to discover three important moral traits, which form the astronaut’s nature and personality.
 The results of this article are a primary investment to the researches, which are dedicated to the modern era of American cinema space fiction.
 The scientific novelty of this work lies in systematic review of American space fiction films, which belong to modern and actual realistic vector of storytelling, where the space fiction genre realizes it’s development nowadays.

Creating Futuristic Heritage Experiences: An Exploratory Co-Design Study through Design Fiction

This study adopted design fiction and co-design as the two main methodological approaches for designers and artists to explore the complex relationships and intersections of futuristic heritage experience and engagement. A literature-based seminar and a co-design workshop were conducted with 26 participants from multidisciplinary backgrounds, via Miro Board. A series of collaborative design practices and science fiction films were utilised as key media for propelling thinking, raising awareness or questions, provoking actions, inaugurating discussions, and offering alternatives necessary for a heritage setting. Additionally, this study reflects upon the complexities of using design fiction activities to re-think the technological future of heritage engagement and experience.

A Posthuman Dharma: Enthiran 2.0

S. Shankar’s 2018 Tamil language science fiction film 2.0, the stand-alone sequel to his 2010 blockbuster Enthiran, presents a bleak vision of a near-present time when obsession with technology has led to deteriorating human relationships as well as destruction of the natural world. The film articulates a posthuman dharma founded on the understanding that humans have an ethical obligation towards all living things, not merely other humans. The film posits the individual as fractured and unstable but valorizes the interconnectivity of humans and non-humans, which is underscored by the film’s innovative evocation of the rasas of classical Indian aesthetics in the context of non-human agents. This essay argues that 2.0 presents a Hindu-inflected ecological posthumanism as the only viable alternative to a dystopian future.

A experiência da inclusão: o primeiro edital de longa-metragem com cotas de gênero e raça na Agência Nacional do Cinema do Brasil

In March 2018, the Brazilian National Film Agency - ANCINE announces a call for the financing of featurelength films with an originality: quotas for cisgender or transsexual/transvestite women directors and black or indigenous people. In addition to the traditional regional quotas providing for 30% of the financial resources for the North, Northeast and Central-West regions and 10% for the South region and the state of Espírito Santo, it was included the participation of minority groups in a national call for production support through resources from the Audiovisual Sectorial Fund - FSA, a modality of direct investment. The income of this national fund is delivered via CONDECINE - Contribution for the Development of the National Film Industry, a tax paid by several Brazilian audiovisual sectors whose application is exclusive in the market. That’s why currently it is said that the incoming resources of FSA are self-generated. The call for production support in question presented resources of 100 million reais divided into two modalities: one focused on fiction, documentary and animation feature-length films, without distinction of commercial or artistic objectives; and another focused on feature length fiction, documentary and animation films with an emphasis on an authorial profile and evident artistic purposes. Within the total, a minimum of 45% were directed to quotas. The purpose of this communication is to present the process that led to the decision to include quotas registered from the registration in the minutes of the Management Committee of the Audiovisual Sectorial Fund meetings; the selection’s criteria of projects based on the public call for selective subsidies; and the results achieved. The results will be analyzed not only from the perspective of final approval, but also by evaluating the current state of the films. The assessment gains importance not only from the point of view of the unprecedentedness - it was the first time in 10 years of the FSA operation in which minority quotas were considered - but also from the current political situation in Brazil in which the inclusion agenda is questioned.

O Papel da Música no Documentário “Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool”

This study seeks to address the use of music in the film “Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool”. The theoretical reference for the analysis is Bill Nichols (2005). Among the ways Nichols addresses to delineate the boundaries that separate a documentary film from a fiction film is the audience, or the viewer. This is viewers, when watching the film, may assume that the sounds and images in that film originate from the historical world. I argue that in documentary film the viewer can retain their belief in the authenticity of the historical world represented on the screen, but this does not prevent their understanding of the film as a perspective on the world. It is part of the tradition of documentary to be able to convey an impression of authenticity, even if the close correspondence between image and reality is not guaranteed. However, when the music used is original, in this respect the correspondence with factuality gets closer.

“It’s hard to say whether that idea is really hers”: a tecnologia como elemento disruptor de identidade em Possessor (2020)

Possessor (2020) is a science fiction film written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg. The story, set in an alternative universe, follows Tasya Vos, an assassin that uses a special machine to take control of others’ bodies to carry out her hits. Through an implant installed in the unwitting host’s brain, Vos insert her consciousness into their minds, forcing them to commit the assassination. As such, the film explores the relationship between technology and identity. The hosts lose control of their own body, while Vos, by being constantly in control of others’ bodies, living their lives, loses sense of herself and her life. In this sense, technology and the individual are tied to modernity, which is characterized by Gilbert Simondon as the appearance of a new type of individual. Man was a tool carrier before the machines, and he was the technical individual himself. In the modern-industrial era, machines are the tool carriers and man is no longer the technical individual; he has become either their servant, or their assembler (apud Stiegler, 2014). Taking this into account, the purpose of this study is to analyze how Possessor uses technology as a destructive and dystopian force that threatens every aspect of our reality, generating a dehumanizing effect, and how the film explores the idea of technology being responsible for the lack of identity and the violence, thus revealing some of the malaise of our contemporary society.

Rhetorical employment of the color in fictional film

مرت السينما منذ اكتشافها الى الان بعدة تطورات جاءت على مستويين التقني والفني، التي ساعدت بشكل فاعل بتحولها من صناعة الى فن، ومن بين تلك التطورات كان اكتشاف اللون ودخوله الى السينما، التي كانت تعتمد على لونين الابيض والاسود بشكل اساسي حيث لم تكن قابلية اضافة اللون متاحة في العقود الثلاثة الاولى من حياتها، ونظراً لما يملكه اللون من اهمية فدخوله الى السينما كان ضرورة لا بد منها، وهذا ما دفع العاملين في هذا المجال الى البدء في محاولاتهم وتجاربهم لأضافة عنصر اللون الى الفيلم.
 وبعد فترة وجيزة من دخوله الى السينما. سراعان ما أدرك العاملين في هذا المجال مدى اهمية وتاثيره على المشاهد، حتى أصبح أحد اهم عناصر اللغة السينمائية، فلم يعد مجرد صبغة تملئ الاطار بل أصبحت له فلسفة خاصة تميزه عن غيره من عناصر لغة الصورة. فيعمل اللون على خلق الاحساس العام والخاص، وتقديم المعنى الدرامي والبلاغي الذي يريد صانع العمل ايصاله الى المشاهد داخل بنية الصورة السينمائية.

Observers and Narrators in Fiction Film

In the debate on our engagement with and appreciation of fiction films, the thesis that the viewer of a fiction film imagines observing fictional events, and the thesis that these events are imagined to be presented by a narrator, are usually taken as two components of one theoretical package, which philosophers such as George Wilson and Jerrold Levison defend, while philosophers such as Gregory Currie and Berys Gaut reject. This paper argues that the two theses can be disentangled and investigates their logical connection. The investigation shows that the second thesis entails the first but there is no entailment the other way around. Endorsing the first thesis is thus compatible with two options, namely endorsing the second thesis or abandoning it. However, the paper argues that if we endorse the first thesis, endorsing the second provides us with a more compelling explanation of our engagement with and appreciation of fiction films.

Fictional Film in Engineering Ethics Education: With Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises as Exemplar

This paper aims to call attention to the potential of using film in engineering ethics education, which has not been thoroughly discussed as a pedagogical method in this field. A review of current approaches to teaching engineering ethics reveals that there are both learning outcomes that need more attention as well as additional pedagogical methods that could be adopted. Scholarship on teaching with film indicates that film can produce ethical experiences that go beyond those produced by both conventional methods of teaching engineering ethics and more arts-based methods such as fiction, as well as connect ethics learning outcomes and issues to the lifeworld of a person. The paper further illustrates the potential of using Miyazaki Hayao’s film The Wind Rises for highlighting a range of ethical issues pertaining to engineering. It also discusses the important role educators play in how film can be used effectively in the classroom. Synthesizing a range of sources from film theory to the use of film in business and medical education, the paper makes the case for using film in engineering ethics education and calls for more research on the use of this method.

Media use and US Attitudes Toward Government and Private Space Exploration

A range of media—including science fiction television programs and films, news outlets, and social media platforms—present messages about space exploration by the US government (NASA) and private companies (such as SpaceX). With this in mind, the present study examines how different forms of media use predict support for space exploration. In doing so, it builds on theoretical accounts of genre-specific cultivation effects, news framing effects, and social media effects. The analyses use data from three national surveys conducted in 2016, 2020, and 2021. The results indicate that science fiction viewing predicts greater support for both government and privatelyfunded space exploration. The results yield mixed evidence on whether television news viewing predicts such support and little evidence that social media use does so. The study's findings highlight the potential role of science fiction in shaping public opinion about space exploration—which, in turn, may influence space policy.

Gender roles, parenthood, and the ethics of care in pandemic media narratives pre- and post-Covid-19

ABSTRACT Crises have always brought along transformations in gender identities, roles, and relations: while much has changed in Western culture regarding the role of women and notions of masculinity are also challenged, efforts to control female roles, bodies, and sexualities persist. For example, Susan Faludi’s The Terror Dream has described the post-9/11 age as an era of reconstituted “traditional” manhood, redomesticated femininity and nuclear family “togetherness.” The question that lies at the basis of this paper is whether – and if so, how –science fiction cinema continues to respond to moments of crisis and vulnerability through the old myth of protective manhood and feminine weakness. By identifying two cases of insecurity – climate change and the coronavirus pandemic – we analyse a recent film (Bird Box, 2018) and two TV series on pandemic outbreaks from the US (Sweet Tooth, 2021) and Italy (Anna, 2021). All three works break new ground – though not devoid of limits – about family structures and parental care: while Bird Box proposes a reversal of gender roles, Anna elaborates on the notion of motherhood by presenting unconventional models of mothering; in Sweet Tooth, the ethics of care is extended to the relationship between humans, animals, and the endangered environment.

Like There’s No Tomorrow

This video essay surveys mainstream science fiction films of the 21st century, highlighting the conspicuous and melancholy recurrence of 20th century iconography in their diegetic worlds. These digital futures offer technological wonders, but no culture of their own.

Equipping Space Cadets: Primary Science Fiction for Young Children by Emily Midkiff

Reviewed by: Equipping Space Cadets: Primary Science Fiction for Young Children by Emily Midkiff Karen Sands-O'Connor (bio) Equipping Space Cadets: Primary Science Fiction for Young Children. By Emily Midkiff. University Press of Mississippi, 2022. Interest in, and focus on, science fiction for children has historically been limited. There was a mini-boom in scholarship in the 1990s, with Gary Westfahl's article in Foundation (Winter 1994) on "The Genre that Evolved: On Science Fiction as Children's Literature," C. W. Sullivan III's Science Fiction for Young Readers (Greenwood 1993), and my own work with Marietta Frank, Back in the Spaceship Again (Greenwood 1999) all looking at fiction for progressively younger readers. These works tried to define what science fiction for children meant, and why it was an important genre, in literature ranging from the originally-adult-audienced work of Asimov and Bradbury to space race series from authors such as Robert Heinlein for what we now call tweens and young adults to Jane Yolen's Commander Toad and Joanna Cole's Magic School Bus series for the picture book crowd. Between 2009 and 2014, Farrah Mendelsohn wondered if children's science fiction existed in The Inter-galactic Playground (2009); Neighbors and Rankin focused on children's science fiction film and television in The Galaxy Is Rated G (2011); and several critics began to focus on the ethics and presentation of science in fields such as biotechnology and environmentalism in science fiction for children. Notably, Noga Applebaum in Representations of Technology in Science Fiction for Young People (Routledge 2009) suggested that most children's science fiction was anti-technology in contrast to science fiction for adults. Recent books have examined gender and racial diversity (Ziegler and Richards 2020; Thomas 2019), and educational issues (Kupferman and Gibbons 2019; Lindgren-Leavenworth and Manni, 2021). Emily Midkiff 's Equipping Space Cadets brings together many of these concerns, but focuses particularly on the definition of science fiction and the reading experiences of young children with it. Midkiff herself notes the fraught debate over the definition of children's science fiction in her first chapter, "Definitions and Evaluations," spending several pages over the debate between fantasy and science fiction. She argues, "Insisting that primary sf distance itself from fantasy holds children's literature to different standards than adult literature" and advocates a broad definition of science fiction for children that includes "space opera and silliness and pop culture shenanigans" (24, 25). Here, Midkiff runs up against one of the defining arguments about children's literature in general: not what it is but what it is for. Children's literature is defined by different standards than adult literature, and has been since John Newbery advertised his children's books as encompassing "Instruction with Delight." If books are meant to teach, then the scientific aspects of science fiction for children become critical—and bad science, fuzzy science, and magical explanations all push much of children's science fiction into the [End Page 340] realm of fantasy (and not necessarily good fantasy). But Midkiff is not really concerned with scientific accuracy—indeed, she is not really concerned with books in general, at least in terms of literary analysis. Her chapter on "Comprehending Genre" reveals this clearly, as her focus is on skills being developed in the reader rather than on what individual books contain. Arguing that many children learn about science fiction from film and television, particularly Star Wars and its "series, spinoffs, and films" (39), she suggests that "Children who are familiar with space travel and spaceship crews can approach the story knowing something of what to expect and use it . . . to help comprehend what they are reading" (39). This technique of using prior knowledge to make predictions and cement definitions is true of reading in general, but Midkiff 's explanation—which again advocates for a broad (or "fuzzy") definition of science fiction, does not account for how this can lead to mistakes in comprehension. All science fiction is fiction, but not all fiction is science fiction. Skilled readers can tell the difference between a story that is about a scientific principle or hypothesis (for example, a book where a character has to adjust between...

Charting the short fiction film

In this article, I explore the landscape of short fiction film in the frame of two broad categories, Classical and Art shorts, and present a chart identifying how styles and devices are at play. Finally, as a brief case study, a short fiction film example is scrutinized and tentatively categorized according to the chart.

The Mimic, the Abstract, and the Familiar in John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982)

The Thing is an American science fiction film that explores the survival of a group of scientists when they encounter a shape-shifting alien life-form in Antarctica. This article draws attention to the monster in three specific forms and how they depict various manifestations of anxiety; the dog-thing, the head-spider, and a human copy. This article examines these versions of the monster and parallels them with three understandings of anxiety; the mimic, the abstract, and the familiar. Therefore surfacing the idea that anxiety molds itself into a parasite that adapts and manipulates the host until there is no distinction between the copy and the original. Through the support of scene analysis and the study of stylistic choices, these presentations of the monster work to prove that the horror genre continues to broaden the idea of ‘fear’ in the realm of the human experience.

Framing daily life in sprawl: flanders urbanized space from a cinematic perspective

ABSTRACT This paper explores the possible contribution of cinematic perceptions for spatial planning in general and the inclusion of everyday experience in the planning of the Flemish urbanized landscape in particular. Urban planners as well as policy makers struggle to get grip on dispersed spatial developments, while everyday practice of consuming space in sprawly areas, also in Flanders, unimpededly continues. Our assumption is that based on a theoretical understanding of the duality between urban theories and everyday life, a cinematic approach might gain insights in the inhabitants’ imagination of suburbia in general and the Flemish landscape in particular. Here we will preliminarily refer to five contemporary fiction films, such as Nowhere Man (Patrice Toye, 2008), Fucking Suburbia (Jeff Otte, 2012), Kid (Fien Troch, 2012), Violet (Bas Devos, 2014) and Home (Fien Troch, 2016). They show how film represents, reflects and interacts with the intrinsic characteristics, the experience value and the typical dynamics of those sprawly areas. These perceptions might enhance a deeper understanding of the daily lives in those areas, and therewith enhance a more engaged approach of those areas by planners.

Cinema's Terrifying Realities: Pandemics, Zombification, and SARS-COV-2.

Contagion is a function of the properties of the pathogen, social interactions, and personal relationships in the society it attacks. Filmmakers in the horror genre were inspired by the idea of rabies as a virus that could mutate into something more dangerous. Fictional epidemics of scavenging undead were often attributed to encephalitis caused by rabies or a mutated rabies virus. During the early months of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, there was a spike in streaming of Contagion that portrays a viral infectious disease modeled after a bat virus that spreads at an alarming rate, unleashing a global public panic and a clueless governmental response. We wanted to trace how filmmakers used rabies pathology as source material for their plots. We searched internet film databases and reviewed fictional films that utilized this plot device. Many dystopic, rabies-induced pandemic scenarios - mostly from the zombie genre - reveal parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many zombie films, despite their absurd premise, anticipated the realities of future pandemics.

Study on Robot Veterinarians

Abstract: Today’s sensor-driven revolution is reworking robots from rote machines into cognitive collaborators. They have got grow to be a key link in a dynamic continuum that encompasses humans, different machines, and the digital environments in which they perform. Robots have contributed massively to our industries, allowing maximum gadgets, home equipment, transportation and processed foods to be made successfully and affordably. There's no denying that the twenty first century has introduced extraordinary improvements and breakthroughs. Robotics has pop out from fictional films to actual-international eventualities, acting elaborate responsibilities and converting the world we stay in. Current improvements in robotics have supplied several methods wherein robots may be included into human existence. Robot adoption will likely be an important determinant of commercial enterprise productiveness. Robots have the potential to reshape the manner organizations are carried out and are intended to deliver extra automation competencies to the company. The aim of this paper is to review the ideas that how robots can beimplemented and introduced in Veterinary field in India.