Here's a look at The Terminator and some other science fiction films taking a genre approach. This is for my BTEC Film Studies students who are currently writing up their own analysis of science fiction films which I hope they will then turn into a blog post just like this! Enjoy reading and please leave any feedback if you have anything to say about what has been written here.
 |
| Arnie becomes an icon |
The Terminator
(James Cameron, 1984) is a hybrid of genres.
It has elements of science fiction, horror and action films. Some of the conventions that make it recognizable as a science fiction film are the use of robots and scenes that
are set in the future. It has horror
conventions such as an unstoppable monster that will not die and does not feel
pain. It is also mostly set at night and
has a girl being relentlessly chased by the monster/robot. The Terminator is also full of car chases,
gun fights and explosions which audiences expect to find in an action film.
Firstly,
The Terminator is science
fiction. The hero and villain are time
travellers from the future. The audience
knows this by the dialogue and the fact that the villain is a cyborg. Time travel is not overly significant to the
plot as once the protagonist and antagonist are in the present, they do not
travel back and forth in time again.
Many other science fiction films use time travel much more with
characters going to the past, the future and their present. An example of this is the Back to the Future trilogy where the
protagonist travels from 1985 to 1955 to 2015 to 1855. This is only possible in science fiction and
allows the characters to have adventures in different time periods. It also allows the filmmaker Robert Zemeckis to make a science fiction Western hybrid in Part 3 of
the trilogy.
 |
| Genre Hybrids: Back to the Future Part 3 |
Cyborgs
are a science fiction convention that do not exist in the present. They are robots that appear human. Beneath the skin it has a metal
endoskeleton. This metal endoskeleton
helps the film conform to genre expectations of the horror and action
film. The Terminator is almost
invincible so it can survive gun fights and even explosions. This means the heroes have to repeatedly try
to kill it, leading to more action scenes.
It also means that the villain keeps rising after it appears to have
been killed. This makes it similar to
the slasher films' psycho killers like Michael Myers of Halloween and Jason Vorhees of Friday
the 13th. The use of a metal
endoskeleton signifies the robot's strength and power and how hard to kill it
will be. The skeleton signifies that it
is dead and therefore impossible to kill.
Its red eyes and gritted teeth also make it appear angry, scary and
determined.
 |
| Michael Myers just won't stay dead |
The
future is presented in the film through the use of flashbacks. It is dystopian as machines have waged a war
on the human race and there are few survivors.
It is darkly lit and there are flying machines and Terminator robots
that hunt down human survivors. The
bleak future is created through special effects such as models of robots and
ruined cities. Humans live underground
and hunt rats, showing the dire situation that the human race is in, in the
future. Technology is killing humans and
this emphasises a message that humans depend too much on technology and are
advancing too quickly in the present.
Science fiction films set in dystopian futures often have messages to convey
about the time in which they were made.
An example of this is Children of
Men that takes place in England, 2027.
The human race is infertile and London is dirtier and more polluted than
it is now. The only thing that seems to
be looked after and technologically advanced is adverts on the side of buses
and buildings. This suggests that
corporate power and greed remain unchanged from present times. There is a bombing in the opening scene and
lots of references to patriotic values and discrimination against
immigrants. This is clearly a reference
to the post 9/11 behaviour of the British and American governments and
demonstrates how genres adapt over time.
The culture also seems obsessed with celebrity as shown by their staring
at the screen and grief over the death of someone they have never met. Children
of Men offers a different vision of the future from The Terminator, but still has uses science fiction conventions to
represent it.
 |
| Children of Men's dystopian future London |
Robots
are not present in Children of Men
but they feature prominently in The Terminator
and Transformers. They are futuristic as they have real human
skin and hair and can sweat and bleed. The Terminator also has a type of
'Terminator vision' created by a red tint and various bits of written
information scrolling on the screen when the audience sees from The
Terminator's point of view. Like in Transformers, the robots disguise
themselves; The Terminator as a human and the Transformers as various vehicles.
 |
| Terminator POV |
The
music and editing also helps the audience to decipher the genre. For the action moments such as car chases and
fights, the music speeds up. The synth
score sounds futuristic and the high pitched string sounds are very reminiscent
of classic horror music from films such as Psycho. Tension is created through the use of
intercutting between the Terminator and his prey, Sarah Connor. The audience is made to worry about Connor’s
safety by the order of the shots. The
Terminator is also shot from a low angle to make him look dominant. This is common for villains and sometimes
heroes.
 |
| Terminator terminating. |
Terminator
is structured like many other horror, science fiction and action films. It introduces a hero and a villain at the
beginning and sets them up as binary opposites.
The human is vulnerable, caring and sensitive and willing to do
anything, including sacrificing himself, for the good of the human race. The Terminator is set up as exactly the
opposite. It may look human but it is
made of metal and therefore hard to kill, it has no feelings and its purpose is
to destroy humans. The human and robot
come into a series of conflicts together; gun fights, car chases and eventually
at the climax hand-to hand combat. The
action film is often structured around a series of confrontations and
set-pieces. The target audience want stunts,
action and fighting and so conversations and dialogue are scattered through the
film between big action moments.
 |
| Kyle Reese: Human Hero |
Terminator
also subverts the expectations of the crime and action film as The Terminator
drives a police car in one car chase.
This means the villain is driving a symbol of law and order. Usually the police are a force for good in
action films and this use of the police car suggests that the Terminator is the
new symbol of order. He will not stop
until he catches his prey, like the determined detectives of many action films. This is taken further in the sequel as the
T1000 villain morphs into the figure of a policeman throughout the film. It also subverts expectations and adapts to
reflect more modern representations of women than were present in many of the
science fiction films of the 1950s.
Sarah Connor may begin the film as a typical damsel in distress but by
the end she is a strong female who must fight the villain by herself and wins. This is similar to the convention of the ‘final
girl’ in slasher films who is the last survivor of the killer and must fight
back to survive. This convention can be
seen in films including Halloween and
Friday the 13th.
 |
| Sarah Connor: The Final Girl |
