WHEN was the last time a science-fiction (sci-fi) film got a proper Oscar nod?
Not just a technical win for visual wizardry, but an artistic win for Best Picture, Best Director or Best Actor?
The classic of the genre, Star Wars, was nominated in 1977 for Best Picture and Best Director but didn't win those categories, having to make do with a laundry list of technical awards like Art Direction, Costume Design, Sound and Visual Effects.
So, what are the chances that either Avatar or District 9 – both clearly sci-fi genre films – will win Best Picture this year? Have attitudes to a type of film more often dismissed as "a bit of fun" and "not serious enough" changed?
Some of the best sci-fi films, ones that even esoteric critics agree are "good", like 2001: A Space Odyssey, have missed out on artistic Oscars despite being nominated. The ground-breaking 2001 only managed a win for Special Visual Effects, with director Stanley Kubrick missing out for Best Director as well as for Writing.
On the other hand, fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings won a swathe of Oscars, including Best Director for Peter Jackson with the final installment, The Return of the King. The other two films picked up Cinematography awards and a heap of technical wins, but it was generally acknowledged at the time that The Return of the King's sweep of the board in 2003 – which included Costume Design, Art Direction, Film Editing, Make-up, Music (Original Score and Original Song), Visual Effects, Sound Mixing and Writing and the ultimate Best Picture – was based on all three films.
Mind you, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy really was a tour de force, after all the Harry Potter films haven't won a thing. Still, the fact that the Academy can decide to go with something that smacks of pure fantasy surely offers a chance for this year's two sci-fi nominees.
But this year, Avatar's chances for Best Picture are pretty good. Most industry watchers are pitching odds that The Hurt Locker, another competitor for Best Picture, will win through. Still, Avatar has had the same number of nominations, and it's been a massive success at the box office.
District 9, on the other hand, is a bit of an outside chance. Many in the industry were surprised to see it in the Best Picture category; but it is another film that has been positively reviewed. It, also, has done better at the box office than originally expected. The Academy tends to like commercial films.
So, with the proliferation of sci-fi and fantasy in literature and on the TV, it's now more likely than ever that giant blue aliens fighting to protect their planet from the ravaging minions of the military-industrial complex, have become mainstream enough to win an Oscar.
After all, if millions upon millions are buying up books about sparkling vampires and boy wizards, if every television channel in the world routinely runs stories about people with superpowers and mysterious islands that mess with time, why can't a small-budget film like District 9, that is about aliens as refugees, win?
What is more interesting, however, is that sci-fi as a genre in movies appears to finally be being understood for what it really is. Sure, sci-fi and fantasy, can be just that – fantasy and escapism. However, these genres can also be seen as metaphors for daily life, philosophies and opportunities to look at our own world through a different lens.
The two nominated films, for example, can clearly be read as social commentary on the "real" world, amongst their technology and explosions.
China's recent recall of Avatar's 2D version from their cinemas was supposedly due to "economic reasons"; but Chinese netizens disagree saying that Avatar's storyline of people being evicted from their homes resonated with the way ordinary citizens were being evicted to make way for massive developments.
An article from British newspaper, Metro, quoted a China Daily columnist as saying, in a reference to Cameron's blue aliens: "All the forced removal of old neighbourhoods in China makes us the only earthlings today who can really feel the pain of the Na'vi."
Han Han, a popular Chinese blogger, echoed this sentiment, writing: "For audiences in other countries, such brutal eviction is something beyond their imagination. It could only take place on another planet – or in China."
In similar vein, District 9's premise – unwanted aliens (in this case from outer space) being dumped in a forgettable ghetto in South Africa – resonates with innumerable refugee camps around the world that already exist.
If either film wins, it's about time, because the genre has been around since the very early years of movies. Georges Melie's A Trip to the Moon in 1902 stunned viewers with it's 'special effects' and Metropolis from 1927 remains an enduring trope in concept and design in literature, film and popular culture.
Even the low-budget, quirky movies of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s – with their obvious wires, plastic monsters and screaming blondes – offered gems like The Man who Fell to Earth staring David Bowie and The Day the World Stood Still (recently remade and, unfortunately, starring Keanu Reeves). Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey from 1968 remains a landmark film, not just for it's depiction of the future but for its study of the human condition; something all great sci-fi films offer.
Once the technology caught up with the ideas – as it finally did for James Cameron's Avatar; a film that couldn't have been made until recently – films got a bit carried away with CGI (computer generated imagery), explosions and space ships. But classic mythology and enduring sentiments continued to be explored – good versus evil in Star Wars; the loss of humanity to technology in The Terminator and The Matrix; the fear of the unknown in Aliens and Contact.
Perhaps the most interesting example of sci-fi as "social commentary" is The War of the Worlds. Written in 1898 – yes, 112 years ago – by HG Wells, it describes the first alien invasion of our planet as Martians in tripods land and start blowing up everything in sight. Thankfully it turns out that they're allergic to common bacteria which kills them off, but not before they destroy civilisation as we (they) know it.
In 1938 Orson Welles famously broadcast the "invasion" as an episode of American radio show Mercury Theatre on the Air, as a Halloween broadcast – the production was reportedly so realistic with news bulletins and no advertising, that people believed the Martians were actually invading. Now considered to be a literary classic, The War of the Worlds is clearly an example of the invasion literature that appeared during the end of the 19th century as international tensions rose in the lead up to World War I.
Since it's inception, The War of the Worlds has evolved into a number of film adaptations, including the original in 1953 and Steven Spielberg's most recent version in 2005 starring Tom Cruise. Unfortunately, neither the 1953 version nor Spielberg's blockbuster managed to win any "serious" Oscars; apart from yet another technical nod for the original's Special Effects.
But hopefully this year, as we head into a new decade, the sci-fi genre will be rewarded for all it has given us over the years – green aliens, blue aliens, explosions in space, the Force, "I'll be back" and some insightful musings on the human condition.