Science Fiction
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In einer totalitären Gesellschaft ist ein Lachen schon manchmal ein befreiender, ja rebellischer Akt. Machte die satirische Übertreibung das bedrückende Setting in Terry Gilliams erster Dystopie Brazil noch erträglich, so ist 12 monkeys, der zweite Film im sogenannten Orwellschen Triptychon, überraschend humorlos für einen Regisseur, der in der Komikertruppe Monty Python groß geworden ist. Es…
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In a totalitarian society, laughter is sometimes a liberating, even rebellious act. If the satirical exaggeration made the depressing setting of Terry Gilliam’s first dystopia Brazil bearable, 12 monkeys, the second film in the so-called Orwellian triptych, is surprisingly humourless for a director who grew up in the Monty Python comedy troupe. This may be…
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A jellyfish drifts in the ocean. This is how Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Lathe of Heaven begins, but anyone looking forward to post-humanist jellyfish science fiction will be disappointed after one page, because the jellyfish is just a metaphor for the fragile yet powerful subconscious in the sea of dreams. Portland in the…
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Eine Qualle treibt im Ozean. So beginnt Ursula K. Le Guins Roman The Lathe of Heaven (in der deutschen Übersetzung: Die Geißel des Himmels), doch wer sich auf posthumanistische Quallen-Science Fiction gefreut hat, wird nach einer Seite enttäuscht, denn die Qualle ist nur eine Metapher für das fragile, doch mächtige Unterbewusstsein im Meer der Träume.…
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Someone must have slandered Mr. Buttle, for one day, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. The story could be told from the perspective of the innocent family man who, due to a printing error, is mistaken for a terrorist named Tuttle, captured, tortured and killed. A bureaucratic error for which the inconspicuous…
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Jemand musste Mr. Buttle verleumdet haben, denn ohne dass er etwas Böses getan hätte, wurde er eines Tages verhaftet. So ließe sich die Geschichte aus der Perspektive des unschuldigen Familienvaters erzählen, der aufgrund eines Druckfehlers mit einem Terroristen namens Tuttle verwechselt, gefangen, gefoltert und getötet wird. Ein bürokratischer Irrtum, für den der unscheinbare Sam Lowry,…
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An astronaut is stranded alone on an alien planet and fights for his survival. With technical know-how, inventiveness and a good portion of colonial power, he finally succeeds in doing what Robinson Crusoe did in Daniel Dafoe’s novel from 1719: the triumph of Homo faber over the uncivilized remaining matter. The End. This is what…
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It is the first book to be officially banned in the Soviet Union. Three years previously, Zamyatin had fought on the side of the Bolsheviks in the February and October Revolutions and was considered a harsh critic of the Russian Empire, but the horrors of the revolution soon dashed all illusions of a better future.…
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More glass domes! While the iconic building form in dystopian science fiction often serves as a prison for totalitarian control societies (see Logan’s Run), Douglas Trumbull’s 1972 film Silent Running follows a much older tradition. His domes are greenhouses like those in Victorian England, in which the splendor of plants in distant lands had to…
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Logan is running. He is in a hurry. Holding his hand is a pretty lady whose name doesn’t matter, because her only function in the entire film is to like the sandman at her side – not the fairy tale character of course; the sandmen form a police unit in the film, whose main task…
Dennis Biba 