Response to Question 2: The Evaluation of Sci-fi and Wells diagnosis

First off let me say that I have watched this version of metropolis, which I did against the better judgment and warnings of my film enthusiast mother, and found it to be an incredible and absolute bore. I was so sure that since it belonged to a list of great cinematic features and was so recognizable and well-known, that it would be amazing; instead I fell asleep 30 minutes in.

H.G Wells shows great dissatisfaction of the film, due to the fact that “It has nothing to do with any social or moral issue before the world or with any that can ever conceivably arise.”, and thus the “fiction” is lost from “Science-Fiction”.  Not only that but as he points the numerous stylistic and philosophical errors of the film, I have to wonder if science fiction can only be evaluated pending on how comparable it can be to the possibilities of the past and current world. If so all science-fiction films that merit to be worthy of the title need to have some sort of proof or basis for their depiction of the future.

And if by evaluating a sci-fi film I take H.G. Wells guidelines, a sci-fi film would be evaluated by how well it portrays the reality that could be the future, by which I mean “is it creative and fantastically futuristic while still retaining realism?”. Thus if implementing this to a critic of “the day the earth stood still”, the film retains realism of the way earth’s citizens and powers would react to aliens but not of the actual aliens themselves which are portrayed with no actual scientific basis.

I guess that it comes to how creative and futuristically fantastic can a sci-fi film be while still being believable, and if it’s not believable or conceivable it does not merit that prognosis. While I don’t agree with H.G. Well’s evaluation, I can’t really think of my own, and thus am still open on the idea of how we should evaluate a sci-fi film.