Science Fiction Film: A Critical Introduction

Description

Science Fiction Film develops a historical and cultural approach to the genre that moves beyond close readings of iconography and formal conventions. It explores how this increasingly influential genre has been constructed from disparate elements into a hybrid genre. Science Fiction Film goes beyond a textual exploration of these films to place them within a larger network of influences that includes studio politics and promotional discourses. The book also challenges the perceived limits of the genre - it includes a wide range of films, from canonical SF, such as Le voyage dans la lune, Star Wars and Blade Runner, to films that stretch and reshape the definition of the genre. This expansion of generic focus offers an innovative approach for students and fans of science fiction alike.

Keith M. Johnston is Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of East Anglia and author of Coming Soon: Film Trailers and the Selling of Hollywood Technology.

Johnston brings a fresh eye to science fiction criticism in this book, drawing attention to some of the exciting and influential films that resonate within the genre and discussing often forgotten elements such as trailers, posters and adverts. * Lincoln Geraghty, University of Portsmouth, UK * Johnston's book should take its place as the most sophisticated and original introduction to the genre. * Kevin Heffernan, Southern Methodist University, USA * Keith Johnston's critical introduction to science fiction film brings a novel and welcome approach from a man who writes as "a fan of the genre" as much as "a genre theorist"... He provides a coherent critical overview of the shared understandings that have been created and applied within the genre, helping readers both new and more experienced to understand the central theoretical claims. * Times Higher Education Supplement (Textbook Guide) * Compiling an introductory work that briefly comprehensively covers a particular film genre - particularly one as richly diverse and complex as science fiction -is no easy tasks. Yet Keith Johnston has been remarkably successful in this endeavour, surveying and unpacking in detail a wide range of issues and films pertinent to the science fiction film scholar, student and general reader. -- Adam brown, Deakin University * Media International Australia *