Before Mary Shelley wrote the classic Frankenstein in 1818, the authorship of the first sci-fi novel in history is attributed to Lucian who wrote True History in the 2 AD, a work on aliens, space travel and intra-galactic warfare. In 1998, H G Wells wrote the The War of the Worlds on a Martian invasion of England. In 1912, Edgar Rice Burroughs—better known as the creator of Tarzan—published the novel Princess of Mars, featuring John Carter as the hero who lands in Mars. It was recently made into a Hollywood film. The word ‘sci-fi’ was coined by Forrest J Ackerman punning on hi-fi, at UCLA in 1954. Isaac Asimov, perhaps the most famous sci-fi writer of the 20th century wrote or edited over 500 books on aliens and their interactions with humantity. However, the making of sci-fi as part of the mainstream literary genre is credited to Arthur C Clarke, whose Space Odyssey series—which includes 2001: A Space Odyssey—is considered one of the most powerful science fiction novels ever written. It also became a Hollywood blockbuster. Ray Bradbury, the famous author of Fahrenheit 451, influenced modern sci-fi writing.
On television, no other series has enjoyed the success of Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek, and characters like Mr Spock and Captain Kirk have passed into contemporary mythology. The franchise is worth $4 billion, according to CNBC. The most influential science fiction film is George Lucas’s Star Wars, which created immortal characters like Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi, R2-D2 and Yoda—adding the word Jedi to modern lexicon. These two entertainers were purely about the realms of outer space, until Steven Spielberg’s ET was introduced as a lovable alien who befrieds a 10-year-old boy—the first film where an extraterrestrial interacts with a human. The movie was remade in Hindi as Koi Mil Gaya, where the endearing alien Jadoo became an instant icon with young Indians. Spielberg was supposedly inspired to make E.T. after reading Satyajit Ray’s story Bankubabur Bandhu (Banku Babu’s Friend). The popular Back to the Future series is the first BO grosser to mix comedy with time travel. The desire to contact with what’s out there is a perennial whimsy captured in films like Contact and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Many sci-fi movies explore man’s fear of an alien conquerer, and are violent and apocalyptic like Terminator, Planet of the Apes, Independence Day, Interstellar, War of the Worlds and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Monsters from outer space, like in the Alien, are ugly and fearsome creatures who prey on the human race. In the end, Earth triumphs. The movies are about hope and mankind as a family uniting to combat alien invasions, thus bringing the world together. The recent Tamil sci-fi comedy movie Indru Netru Naalai collected Rs 3 crore in three days. After comic book franchises released superheroes on screen with spectacular financial success, science fiction as a world of wonder, the unexpected and the profound, has become a mainstream genre.
No more, “I’ll be back”. It’s Forward to the Future now.