Sociology

A quality many great works of science fiction share is the creation of a vivid vision of an alien world in the mind of the audience.

Speaking on what makes an effective presentation of an Otherworld Tolkien says that in order to create an effective suspension of disbelief in the reader, it is not enough to simply say that there was a green sun, but the writer has to be able to describe with a degree of completeness, a world in which a green sun is credible. An effective presentation of the otherworld has to have, what Tolkien terms, the power of sub-creation i.e. creating another world inside the mind of the reader. Merely to describe strange and wonderful things one after another is not enough, all these things must be present inside a coherent framework, the otherworld must be internally consistent. In other words we can say that the fantasy novel, as conceived by Tolkien, is like a game between the reader and the novelist, like any game, it must have rules.

What Tolkien has said regarding the fantasy genre of novels is applicable not only to the fantasy genre and to the medium of books, but to but to other forms of speculative fiction as well, whether they are portrayed in the format of a novel or in the format of a film or a TV show. Science fiction critic Suvin is talking about something similar when he defines the genre of science fiction as having at its primary locus a new object or idea, novum .which must then be convincingly explained in concrete, even if imaginary, terms that is, in terms of the specific time, place, agents, and cosmic and social totality of each tale.

If the novum remains unexplained and undefined with respect to the totality or the universe in which the story occurs, the work of art in which the story is told is not usually perceived to be a work of science fiction. For example, the highly popular TV Show, Pushing Daisies features, a man who is able to bring the dead back to life with a single touch. It is not explained at all through what agency he is able to have that power. A possible explanation may have been religious (God-given power, angelic intervention etc.), magical or scientific (genetics). Aside from the novum the rest of the universe is the same as ours. Similarly, in the TV Show Early Edition, a man receives tomorrows newspaper every day, allowing him to prevent accidents before they happen. In this story too, there is no explanation of what agencies are involved and the world in which it occurs is pretty much the same as ours.
A common technique in Science Fiction is to situate the Novum in the everyday world or the reader or in an Otherworld that is familiar to the reader. Commenting on Herbert Franks  Dune, Adam Roberts says that Dune describes the familiar world of a romanticised Arabia, complete with desert tribes, a Laurence of Arabia style Caucasian hero and the equivalents of Ismaili Hashishin style Assassins. In this familiar, though mostly imaginary or at least highly over-exaggerated, world, the novelist brings in the novum of giant sandworms. Adam Roberts says, He Frank Herbert is able to throw the alien into relief against a background of familiarity and therefore make the otherness all the more striking, all the more powerful (Roberts 2006, p. 34).  This highlighting of the strange against the background of the familiar, or in other words, telling a familiar story through the workings of strange characters and devices is a common technique in storytelling.

The Flintstones and the Jetsons both live the same sorts of lives and have the same sorts of problems, which are the common everyday problems that the viewers of the two cartoon series are familiar with, but the comedy element is mostly derived from the settings in which these problems occur and are solved.

In the Harry Potter books too, much of the humorous and interesting content is based upon the magical equivalents of the devices and the social and government institutions of the real world.

A more Science Fiction example is the movie Star Wars (i.e. Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope). This is basically the story of a farm boy who rescues a princess from the clutches of a malevolent supernatural entity with the help of a benevolent supernatural entity. This same formula can be seen multiple folklores legends and works of fiction from Jack and the Beanstalk to Aladdin (Lynn 2005, p. 6). Its just that the powers of the Jedi knights are not based on magic spells but based on some kind of psychic or psionic manipulations of an invisible energy and unlike the magic flying carpet, the workings of the strange transports and weapons is based on high technology. In the background of this familiar story the advanced technology of the Star Wars universe and the mental abilities of the Jedi Knights are highlighted.

The film The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is a Science Fiction expression of the common fears of the people in the paranoid atmosphere of America in the 1950s. In those days there was a common fear the Soviet Union was undertaking a gradual covert takeover of the United States by placing communists in influential places of the government and other important institutions and by indoctrinating important people and converting them to communism and by indoctrinating the next generation. The fear the communists had already infiltrated the government and media led to the formation of the House Committee on Un-American activities (HUAC) led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose name became synonymous with the political tactic of accusing the opposition of being disloyal. A 1949 editorial in Life magazine warns its readers that the communist can be anyone they may look like normal white people with Anglo-Saxon names like Thompson, Foster, Crosbie or Minor but they are Russia Firsters and many of them have managed to infiltrate and reach the topmost levels of the government, trade unions and social organisations.

The book, Masters of Deceit The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It by FBI director reveals the hidden communist agenda behind such varied movements and campaigns such as the nuclear disarmament movement, a campaign against police brutality or campaigns against the high costs of living. According to Hoover, all of these are communist campaigns
Agitation campaigns are of all types, local, state, and national
-- dealing with the high cost of living
-- against a rise in transit fares
-- opposing a bill in Congress or a state legislature
-- protesting the showing of a Fascist movie
-- urging amnesty for convicted Smith Act victims
-- demanding peace repeal the draft more aid to schools
-- protesting the arrival in town of some celebrity not liked by the Party.

In the film, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, instead of communists, it is pod people from outer space who have been replacing ordinary people. These pod people are indistinguishable from normal Americans, except from their behaviour. They display the cold, unemotional demeanour that Americans imagined citizens of Soviet Russia to have.

The film also represents their fears that the modern society and the rising technology were causing the citizens of the United States itself to lose their individuality and become automatons and cogs in the corporate machinery. People were driving and travelling on the same sort of vehicles, working the same sort of jobs (paper pushing) and eating the same sort of food (fast food). They were exposed to the same sorts of news, views and ideas through the television and the movies. In other words both capitalism and communism lead people to abandon all individuality and confirm to one standard and live drab and boring lives devoid of all passion and suppressing their emotions.

In this familiar story of conspiratorial and gradual takeover of the country by a foreign power, the mechanism through which the takeover happens is thrown into sharp relief. The pods drift through space, looking for worlds suitable for colonisation, once they find a likely one, a blank individual on whom the features of a member of the target species is stamped, comes out of the pod. That individual is then disposed of and the pod person proceeds to take their place. This is the greatest source of horror in this film, a person seeing the film wonders whether their co-workers are all pod people Are they themselves in danger of becoming or being replaced by pod people

The film Blade Runner (1982) deals with the issues of rising global population, megacities and the fear of dark skinned people taking over the cities and the dehumanising and sterilising effect of the soulless bureaucracy and corporations and their increasing control over human lives along with the rise in technology. If we subtract all the science fiction elements of the film the basic story can be read as a noir film about a police detective hunting down criminals in the ghettos of a big city.

All these fear are based upon the actual fears or exaggerations of the actual fears of modern day audiences. In the 1980s white people had abandoned or were in the process of abandoning the large cities and had established their communities in the suburban areas.

The city of Los Angeles depicted in the film is an overcrowded city, bursting at the seams, full of dark skinned people who, by their looks, seem to be Hispanic or belonging to some Asian ethnicity (Sohn 2008, p. 16). It is suggested that white people have all but abandoned the Earth and are living in off-world colonies.

The replicants can themselves be thought of as a type of persecuted racial minority. They look like humans physically and internally, the only way to tell a replicant apart from a human is through the Voight-Kampff machine. This is a machine which tests the bodys responses to questions that would be disturbing to a human. The replicants are used as slave labour in off-world colonies, when they escape to Earth they are hunted down and killed.

The fear of government mind control is also voiced in the film. Human mastery over the brain has grown to the extent that it is possible to record the memories of one person and implant them into a replicant. Rachael is a prototype, advanced replicant who has been implanted with the memories of the niece of Dr. Eldon Tyrell, who is the owner of the Tyrell Corporation that manufactures replicants. Rachael does not know that she is a replicant believing that the implanted memories are her own. In fact it is strongly hinted that the hero Deckard himself is a replicant.

Concern over ever present advertising is expressed through the huge billboards that float above the city advocating immigration to Mars, where people live happily tended by their replicant slaves.

Through expansion of human population, the resultant increased settlement of land and the pollution caused by humans, many species of animals are facing the threat of extinction. In the world of Blade Runner, most animals have already died out the snake and the owl shown in the film are both replicant animals.

Several of the movies aspects are representations of common themes found in other works of art. In the sex scene between Deckard and Rachael, Deckard forces himself upon Rachael. Rachael is depicted as initially reluctant but then acquiesces to it. This is a theme common to a wide variety of legends and folk stories such as the Grecian myth The Rape of Europa and was also a common theme in works of romantic fiction or bodice rippers of the past, where the fictional hero convinces the heroine to fall in love with him through the initial use of force.  Pris a statuesque, blonde pleasure model replicant portrays the familiar character of a woman forced into prostitution.

There are important Biblical themes in the film. The Bible depicts Satan, the head of the forces of evil as a fallen angel, the ultimate ancestors of the human race are also said to be fallen from heaven because of their disobedience of the command of their Creator, God not to eat the forbidden fruit. In the film Dr. Eldon Tyrell is a god-like figure to the replicants, he places them in the heavens above but they disobey him and come down to earth. The replicant Roy Batty comes to him seeking a longer life. Tyrell greats him as his prodigal son, this is a reference to the parable of the Prodigal Son in the New Testament (Luke 1511-32). The Prodigal Son of the Bible returns to his father after disobeying him, he is then forgiven by the father. This story is a metaphor for Gods willingness to forgive his creatures. In the end Roy Batty becomes a martyrChrist figure, he strikes a nail into his hand, a clear reference to the a crucifixion and at his death a dove, symbolic of the Holy Spirit of Christianity (Mark 110), rises to the sky, The Biblical story of the fall of man is also explicitly referenced in Zhoras exotic dance with the snake, an unseen stage-voice declares the snake to be the serpent who had once corrupted man.
As we have seen from the examples of Blade Runner and the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the auteur of a science fiction film need not build the Otherworld from scratch, some of the most effective and classical examples of science fiction exploit the well known myths, legends beliefs, fears and archetypes of human cultures and civilisations.