Genre Science Fiction

Science fiction (SF) is a very broad genre which, in the widest sense, deals with technological and scientific questions. SF is often set in the future, but not always. The genre overlaps with fantasy, horror, utopia and many others.

Improv audiences are likely to associate very different expectations with science fiction. Two groups can be distinguished: the fans, and everyone else. Fans tend to be male and tech-loving. They know the genre very well, have seen many films, read many books or comics. Many are active fans of a particular author, film or series. The cliché fan decorates his room in the style of his favourite films and goes to fan conventions in costume. This audience understands and enjoys references to specific characters and scenes ("Beam me up, Scotty"). A true fan would never mix the universes of Star Trek and Star Wars.

The rest of the audience tends to know rather little science fiction. Their clichés come less from the original works than indirectly and unconsciously through widely circulating quotations.

A signature of SF, alongside its themes, is its mode of storytelling. Characters and motives are usually drawn very simply. The story is told from the protagonist's perspective. Side characters, parallel plotlines or characters' inner development are barely shown. Characters have simple value systems. Social structures are predominantly hierarchical. Often there are military ranks; at least there is one (typically male) leader figure whose authority is taken for granted.

The cliché target audience for science fiction is 10- to 14-year-old boys who care more about cool tech toys than about girls and feelings. :-)

Space adventure

The sub-genre space adventure is familiar to a broad audience above all from the TV series Star Trek and the Star Wars film series. In Germany the TV series Raumpatrouille Orion enjoys a cult status of its own.

The mood of the genre is shaped strongly by the spirit of the time. When Jules Verne wrote From the Earth to the Moon in 1865, a journey into space was still a bold thought experiment — science fiction in the literal sense. Comic series of the 1930s like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers moved adventure stories into space so they could freely invent absurd beings and places. With the rocket technology of the 1940s, journeys into space first moved into the realm of the possible. Between 1957 (Sputnik shock) and 1969 (Moon landing), space fever ruled, as humans really did conquer space. By the 1970s the euphoria was over; awareness grew of the fragility of Earth's ecosystem, framed by the image of Earth as a tiny blue speck of dust in the endless void.

As cliché, however, space adventures are above all adventure stories. The (typically male) protagonist travels into the unknown, encounters strange beings in strange places and masters surprising situations. Other stories can be moved into space too: Alien is essentially a horror story, Solaris a psychological self-experience trip.

Space adventures are usually set inside spaceships or on alien planets.

Popular models

Dune — the first volume of the novel cycle appeared in 1965; the first film adaptation in 1984
Raumpatrouille Orion — 1966
Star Trek — the original TV series ran 1966–1969, sequels 1987–2005
2001: A Space Odyssey — 1968
Star Wars — the first film of the six-part series appeared in 1977
Alien — first film 1979

Locations

off Earth
outer space
alien planet
space station
shuttle
alien spaceship
human spaceship
wormhole
space battle
parallel universe
in a space suit

Figures and characters

humans
aliens that look like humans
aliens that look like monsters
omnipotent godlike beings
doppelgangers from parallel universes
clones
androids, robots
captain
commander
lieutenant
ensign

Conflicts

war between two worlds, usually Earth versus aliens
fight over resources
crash on an alien planet, no help in sight
discovery of a new species
affair with an alien species
unusual alien rituals
the computer takes control and no one can stop it
aliens take over humans' minds
alien invasion of Earth
abduction by aliens
space anomalies, particle storms, dangerous radiation

Distinctive features

technical gadgets
laser pistols, light sabres, phasers
tractor beams
faster-than-light (warp) travel
shields
energy barriers, energy shields
beaming
medical scans in seconds
telepathy
telekinesis
supernatural powers (control over space and time)
time travel both ways
energy clouds
space anomalies
meteorites, comets

UFOs and aliens visit Earth

Where space adventure boldly explores the unknown, this sub-genre is about the visit of the foreign, with all the fears and hopes that brings. To heighten the fear, in some stories the aliens cannot be told from humans by appearance.

In 1898 H. G. Wells published The War of the Worlds. The 1938 radio play with Orson Welles was mistaken in New York by many listeners for actual news coverage and caused a panic. War of the Worlds has been filmed several times and retold in countless variants, so almost every audience member is familiar with the story.

As cliché, it is always about the threat to human civilisation from technologically and militarily superior aliens. The plot has elements of war, spy and disaster films. The collective fight against an overwhelming destructive force brings out "the best" in humanity. At the end the human side wins, against all odds. :-)

For a positive view of aliens, two Steven Spielberg films set the cliché. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) establishes a New Age aesthetic, especially the beam of light from the spaceship door as an invitation. The comedy E.T. (1982) makes the alien resemble a lovable small child, kind-hearted with big innocent eyes.

As cliché, this strand is about the redemptive effect of meeting a superior "pure being". The story has a religious component — awakenings, expectations of an afterlife, the worship of higher beings. By the end the alien holds high status over the humans, even as a shaggy Alf (1986–1990). :-)

The TV series The X-Files (1993–2002) plays this sub-genre through extensively in all its variations.

Locations

on Earth, "at home"

Machines rule the world

Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein is the prototype of this sub-genre. It deals with humanity's fear of losing control of its own (technological) creations. The underlying myth (Prometheus) is ancient; new is that, in the technological age, some scenarios have a very real backdrop.

Variations are countless and reflect the state of technology at any given time. Sometimes robots and combat machines threaten the world (Terminator, Blade Runner); sometimes computers go rogue (WarGames) or other human creations (Minority Report).

The plot of these stories has several stages. (1) A human creates the being and is warned of the risks. (2) He himself releases the being; the being develops a will of its own. (3) During the status seesaw, the being takes power and the creator loses all control. (4) Humans fight the being and try, somehow, to bring it back under control.

This sub-genre offers room for deep, interesting inner action. Questions of morality and ethics, responsibility and humanity can be raised. It can also be flattened to a straightforward disaster film.

Time travel

Travelling through time is a popular motif in science fiction. Unlike historical or future novels, which are simply set in a particular period, time-travel stories require people from different eras to meet personally.

On the improv stage, scenes work well in which opposites collide. In the TV series Life on Mars (2006), a police officer from 2006 is thrown into 1973 and confronted with completely different cultural standards and technological possibilities. The Jesus Video (1998) constructs a situation in which present-day people find a video of the historical Jesus, made with modern recording technology but buried for 2,000 years.

Acting-wise, scenes are also rewarding when someone meets her younger or older self in person. How has the person developed, what distinguishes her at different ages? Intellectually appealing is also the question of which version is currently the protagonist of the story.

Easier to play are scenes where (technical) devices from another time are present in the depicted era. The classic line then runs: "Where did you get that device?" — "I come from the future." :-)

A challenge in time-travel stories is the principle of causality. Actions in the past have effects on the future. But if someone kills his grandfather before his father was conceived, how can he, as the grandson, travel into the past at all? Some stories simply ignore the problem; others make it the central theme, like Terminator (1984), Back to the Future (1985) or 12 Monkeys (1995). For the improv stage such a plot structure is usually too complex.

So time travel as a what-if story is best suited to literature and film. In H. G. Wells's The Time Machine (1895) the time journey provides a pretext for an elaborate caricature of Victorian society. The TV series Sliders (1995–2000) shows in each episode a world differing from our own by one significant point — what would be different if we behaved this way or that?

All in all, time travel as a genre is rather poorly suited to improv. But interesting games could surely be derived from the time-travel motif.

Negative utopias

Less cliché-driven are so-called negative utopias: portraits of a future society in which personal, interpersonal, political, economic and ecological conditions have taken an explicitly negative turn relative to our present. The best-known example is 1984 by George Orwell.