Throughout science fiction films, there are different icons that vary from film to film. One of the most predominant icons in science fiction film is the robot. Iconography is the visual images and symbols used in a work that can be studied or interpreted. Elements of visual content that appear over and over again in film become visual conventions or icons that are understood by the filmmaker and the audience. Robots are seen in a wide range of science fiction films, which allows the viewer to be drawn to recognition of their expressive singularity. Both Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still and Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet, are icons of science fiction robots, who each carry out a different function and are presented differently to spectators, but are still both visualized as science fiction robots. Gort is a mysterious “policeman”, while Robby the Robot bears no resemblance to Gort and serves as a sort of “butler”. Gort and Robby the Robot obtain super-human qualities which allow them to be innovative and intellectually complex to the audience. Although, both characters may be called the same thing, …show more content…
a robot, each robot serves a different purpose, with its own special characteristics. In The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), Gort is a fictional robot character having an appearance that somewhat resembles a human, mainly in the body features. Gort’s visual appearance reflects a medieval knight in shining armor. The character is an eight-foot metal robot that joins Klaatu, both visitors to Earth from an unidentified, extrasolar planet. The two arrive in Washington, D.C. using a flying saucer as means of transportation. One of the major differences between Gort and Robby is that Gort does not speak, but instead is able to use a laser like weapon that is launched from beneath his visor. This laser like beam is used by Gort to immediately vaporize weapons and other physical obstacles that stand in either his or Klaatu’s way. The idea of having Gort not speak adds to his mysterious character. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, Klaatu is the character who does all the talking, leaving Gort to constantly be questioned by the audience. In the film, Klaatu describes Gort as one of his planet’s interstellar police force. Gort is able to hold unalterable authority to preserve the peace. He does this by being able to destroy or vaporize any attacker, invader or instigator. Klaatu is representative of the progression from alien to human, rather than the typical alien to human portrayal in science fiction movies.
Klaatu is the character who parallels political thinking of the 1950’s, as he comes to Earth to keep the peace, explaining the he understands the key to peace. While Klaatu is depicted as the reversal and goes from costumed alien to human, Gort represents an unimaginable force. Gort represents a bomb, destruction, and the idea that if you (you being the United States) act out, you will be destroyed. This reflects the American ideology of this time that we do not care about other internal affairs but when other countries are doing something that is affecting us, the United States, we will intervene. This film uses Klaatu and Gort, to represent peace and destruction respectively, to reflect the American Foreign
Policy. In order to produce iconography, the visual representation of the actual robot must appear a very specific way in the film. The ways in which icons are presented to spectators are very important and require design, preparation and proper creation. Preparation for creating the perfect depiction and visualization of a robot takes a lot of work. In the film, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Gort is constructed from a single piece of "flexible metal" (Dirks). The actor Lock Martin played Gort by wearing a thick foam-rubber suit. His costume was constructed so that Gort would appear seamless from any angle in the completed scenes. During the 50’s, the time that this movie was made, films required a detailed understanding of special affects and what was available to the creators during the time of production. When Gort was not moving, or shown close up, a fiberglass statue of Gort was used for easier representation. The creators also wanted to maximize the height of Gort, so the Gort suit was made with lifts in the boots so that the actor, Martin could use the costume in the most efficient way. By doing this in certain shots, Martin could see forward through the suit's visor. Also, air holes were placed under the robot's wide chin and jaw, for the sole reason that being able to breathe is especially important (Warren). All of these aspects are carefully thought through when creating an icon, in order to portray the robot in the best, and most believable visualization possible. In the film, Klaatu’s saucer is situated on the National Mall in Washington D. C., and this is where Gort remains mainly motionless, aside from taking a few steps here and there. As he stays near the saucer, scientists and military researchers strive to investigate both the Gort and the saucer. One of Gort’s most recognizable features in science fiction film is the way that Klaatu and Gort communicate. Gort responds to spoken commands, which includes the famous line "Klaatu barada nikto." This line is spoken by actor Patricia Neal's character toward the end of the film and is this the first words in an alien language throughout all of science fiction film. Overall Gort is a representation of destruction and represents the mainstream U.S. political ideology that is: if we do one thing wrong, this will lead to our destruction. The idea that sends a post World War II message, saying that similar to after World War II, if we, or other countries involved in the Cold war, did one thing wrong, it would have led to destruction. Don Marinelli, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center explained that, ”Gort represents a watershed moment in science fiction ideology. Gort was a reaction to a world mired in post-Holocaust existential relativism, to belief in definable concepts of 'good and evil' and other societal and moral dictums” (www.robothalloffame.org). Today, Gort represents the fatal repercussions of human dispute, by encouraging the careful contemplation of the use of robots between the schism of war and peace.
Literature and film have always held a strange relationship with the idea of technological progress. On one hand, with the advent of the printing press and the refinements of motion picture technology that are continuing to this day, both literature and film owe a great deal of their success to the technological advancements that bring them to widespread audiences. Yet certain films and works of literature have also never shied away from portraying the dangers that a lust for such progress can bring with it. The modern output of science-fiction novels and films found its genesis in speculative ponderings on the effect such progress could hold for the every day population, and just as often as not those speculations were damning. Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis are two such works that hold great importance in the overall canon of science-fiction in that they are both seen as the first of their kind. It is often said that Mary Shelley, with her authorship of Frankenstein, gave birth to the science-fiction novel, breathing it into life as Frankenstein does his monster, and Lang's Metropolis is certainly a candidate for the first genuine science-fiction film (though a case can be made for Georges Méliès' 1902 film Le Voyage Dans la Lune, his film was barely fifteen minutes long whereas Lang's film, with its near three-hour original length and its blending of both ideas and stunning visuals, is much closer to what we now consider a modern science-fiction film). Yet though both works are separated by the medium with which they're presented, not to mention a period of over two-hundred years between their respective releases, they present a shared warning about the dangers that man's need fo...
As a whole, science fiction utilises mise-en-scene to establish many SF codes and conventions (as mentioned above). As seen in Blade Runner, the most significant elements of mise-en-scene that help construct SF codes and conventions include the use of cinematography, lighting, editing, music, props and costumes. Blade Runner is incredibly unique for it is the first SF film to contain film noir and be categorised as cyberpunk; a subgenre of SF that showcases advanced technology in an urban, dystopian future (Callaghan 2017). As such, Blade Runner has established numerous codes and conventions for later cyberpunk films (E.g. 1984’s The Terminator). In one scene in Blade Runner, inside of a meeting room in a Tyrell Corporate building, the protagonist,
The science fiction film, Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, first released in 1982 and loosely based on Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,1 has continued to fascinate film viewers, theorists and critics for more than fifteen years. Writings include Judith B. Kerman's Retrofitting Blade Runner, a collection of academic essays;2 Paul M. Sammon's book on the making of the various versions of the film;3 and an extensive network of publications are available via the World-Wide Web.4 A student colleague has just seen the film for the eighteenth time.
It is my analysis that Kurbrick was not just showing America the stupidity of nuclear war, but was also showing that the United States government often makes mistakes. One mistake, not just in the movie but in life, is the allocating of power to an individual who is not fit, whether mentally or physically, to have this power. When these individuals are allocated this power their actions can have a worldly consequence.
Science fiction writing began in the early 1800’s as a reaction to the growth of science and technology. The genre is characterized by its intellectual excitement, high adventure, and its making of the fantastic possible. Due to the nature of science fiction, film has become an essential part of its popularity. Science fiction films have been popular since the earliest silent clips because of the outlandish visuals and creative fictional story lines that capture an audience’s attention. Under the guise of this popular platform, writers relay political, social and philosophical messages to their audience.
[12] Slade, Joseph W. "Romanticizing Cybernetics in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner." Literature Film Quarterly 18.1 (Jan 1990): 2-64
Symbols usually consist of objects, characters, or figures expressing a larger concept or idea. In 1984, symbols find themselves in many main ideas and themes. Some symbols are used to represent a deeper meaning in characters and plot, while others show comparison and contrast between ideas. Several of these symbols are clearly shown throughout the book, catching the attention of the reader to further the understanding of the battling themes. Sometimes, words do not come close to describing what is going on.
Another element of Bradbury's writing is robots. Wayne L. Johnson explains that "the robot represents the ultimate heart of the scientific conceit, wherein men's knowledge of the universe becomes so great that he is able to play God and create other men" (73). Robots represent the degrading value of life present in society. All of Bradbury's robot stories found in The Stories of Ray Bradbury come to unhappy endings. They are "horror stories as well as light-hearted warnings against taking robots for granted" (74). Many stories with robots are considered science fiction because robots are considered to be futuristic things. Bradbury uses robots to show the value people place on science over human beings. In "Marionettes, Inc.", two men are unhappy with their wives. One man, Braling tells the other man, Smith, that he has purchased a robot to take his place as a husband.
...es, we must change for the better. In the movie, Klaatu appears before Barnhardt's colleagues and warns them that because the universe grows smaller every day, threats of aggression cannot be tolerated. Klaatu assures them that they will be under the watchful eye of a robot named Gort, who was invented by an organization of planets determined to stamp out violence. Each planet is guarded by a robot that impartially acts against aggression, and the inhabitants live in peace. He informs the crowd, "Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration."
An iconography is a symbolic representation that carries hidden meaning of a term, image, and item. Both Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart fully describe many symbolisms of specific items and all of them are attached to different kinds of meaning behind. Although Heart of Darkness is a famous literature that was criticized by Chinua Achebe and each of their work represents different point of views during similar time of history, both literatures have a similarity that they operate iconography in relation to race, class and identity with their own interpretations of symbols and icons.
While the movie is more action based, Asimov’s books are focused on human-robot relations. In a lot of Asimov’s robot stories, rarely any robot breaks the three laws. The biggest connection between the movie and the books are the leading characters like Dr. Susan Calvin and Dr. Alfred Lanning. The “I, Robot” book is a complete history of robots told through Dr. Calvin’s eyes and the movie is just a part of this huge history. Although the plot of the movie isn’t a part of the book, it surly speaks the words and ideas of Isaac Asimov and I think that if he were alive, he would very much appreciate the movie and his acknowledgment and respect in the world of robotics.
Star Wars is a franchise which has successfully adapted a set of recurring themes throughout its films; themes that keep the audience captivated in the storyline, while at the same time using symbolism to express different thoughts and ideas to help develop the plot. Everything in the films, whether it be a lightsaber, an outfit, or the color of a room, has a hidden significance, greater than is first apparent. The audience is given the option to dig deeper into the symbols displayed through the films and decipher the meanings behind each one. Due to the immense amount of literary devices, such as motifs, themes, and symbols, Star Wars is regarded as one of the most significant film franchises in history.
Nevertheless, Lucas took the protocol droid idea from Forbidden Planet and made it original. A franchise like Star Wars might have defined sci-fi for generations, but Forbidden Planet essentially created Sci-Fi’s platform as we know it. Coining ubiquitous sci-fi terms Star Wars associates itself today with, such as “hyper drive” and “blaster”. Along with 2001, Forbidden Planet stands as one of the most fundamentally groundbreaking sci-fi films of all time. Drawing on real sci-fi concepts and enhances a stimulating use of an electronic music score. Forbidden Planet provides cinematic depth at a time where 1950’s B-movie box office sci-fi flicks were the Hollywood nomenclature. Compromising a blend of technological paranoia (computers and technology
Many people have probably heard of Sir Isaac Newton. He is a common household name nowadays, but few people actually understand the extent or value of his contributions to our modern societies. He is known to be one of the most influential scientists and mathematicians of all time (Issac Newton Facts). Many theories and laws that we now take for granted are attributed to the work and research of Sir Isaac Newton. He is especially popular for his laws that govern the natural world around us. Sir Isaac Newton did not confine himself to just one area of research. He was a man of many talents and was well versed in many areas such as Mathematics and Science. Throughout Sir Isaac Newton’s life, he made multiple discoveries and contributions to our modern world including his laws of gravity and motion, the improvements to the telescope, and the formation of calculus.