Societies in Space

Science fiction films and television programs about space travel have undergone a significant transformation since their inception. In contrast to the early depictions of small spaceship crews on exploratory missions, recent film and television portrayals depict much larger societies in space as well as the obstacles that arise with them.
This collection of essays examines many aspects of making space travel films, from the process of screenwriting to the impact of Greek myth on modern film, with illuminating commentary on contemporary problems including class distinction, racism, and sexism. Contributors to this volume, including several extensively published scholars and science fiction writers, analyze a wide variety of relevant science fiction films and television programs ranging from Star Trek, Silent Running, the Alien films and Japanese anime to more recent works like Battlestar Galactica, Avatar, Elysium, The Martian, Passengers, and Ad Astra.

Gary Westfahl, a professor emeritus at the University of La Verne, California, has authored, edited, or co-edited 34 books about science fiction and fantasy, and hundreds of articles and reviews. In 2003, he received the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim Award for his lifetime contributions to science fiction and fantasy scholarship.

Edited by Gary Westfahl
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 266
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2025
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8981-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5434-8
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments v

Introduction

Gary Westfahl 1

When the Journey Is the Destination: Space Travel as the Subject of Science Fiction Films

Gary Westfahl 7

Specification vs. Speculation: Bradbury, Ellison, and Approaches to SF Screenwriting

Phil Nichols 18

Alien Sounds: Noise, Agency, and the Other in 2001 and Close Encounters

Richard L. Hunt 30

Pulp Paradox: The Problem of the Science Fiction ­A-Film

Bradley Schauer 37

Enlightened Colonialism: The United Federation of Planets and Race in Star Trek

Anthony Macías 48

A Complete Human Society in Space: Douglas Trumbull’s Silent Running

Gary Westfahl 57

The Robotech Phenomenon: Japanese Anime and Its Impact on SF in the United States

Andrew Howe 64

Super Humans and Nature as Nonhuman Others in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and E.Y.E.S. of Mars

Julie Ha Tran 75

Fighter Pilots, Femme Fatales and Mother Messiahs: Gender and Genre Hybridity in Battlestar Galactica

Lacy Hodges 81

Redemption and Reproduction in Battlestar Galactica and Caprica

Jennifer Kavetsky 89

Crises of Faith: God(s) and Humankind in Caprica

Warren Rochelle 96

To Boldly “Not” Go Where No Woman Has Gone Before: The Restriction of Female Characters to Traditional Roles in the Anime Series Planetes

Paul S. Price 106

The Post–9/11 Mohican: Avatar and the Transformation of the “Manifest Apology”

Andrew Howe 120

Tracking the Sovereign: Biopolitical Representation in Peter Watkins’s Punishment Park and Gareth Edwards’s Monsters

Simon Lee 141

“An empire o’er the disentangled doom”: Captivity and the ­Re-Staging of Prometheus in the ­Twenty-First Century

Stephanie A. Smith 167

Mission to Planet Earth: Spacesuits Films After 1969

Gary Westfahl 184

Unsafe at Any Speed: When Warp Is Not an Option

Stephen W. Potts 204

What Does God Need with a Starship? The Functional Space of Spaceships in Modern Cinema

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro 220

Bibliography: Resources for the Study of Films About Societies in Space 237

About the Contributors 247

Index 249

“This volume will make a major contribution to our understanding of postwar Science Fiction cinema. The essays have an impressive breadth which covers budgets, ethnicity, politics and other factors which build up a helpful context to the films.”—Professor David Seed, Liverpool University